LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


33 


XX 


TIRED  RADICALS 
&  OTHER  PAPERS 


WALTER    WEYL 
/r 

TIRED    RADICAL  S 

AND    OTHER    PAPERS 


NEW  YORK  :    B.   W.   HUEBSCH,   INC. 
MCMXXI 


COPYRIGHT,    1921,    BY 
B.    W.    HUEBSCH,    INC. 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

To  the  friends  of  the  late  Walter  Weyl  this  book 
will  present  more  than  an  intrinsically  interesting 
volume.  The  validity  of  the  essays  at  this  date, 
in  the  light  of  the  happenings  since  they  were 
written,  serves  to  justify  the  admiration  of  those 
who  followed  the  author's  work  during  his  life- 
time. The  quality  of  the  present  volume  is  such 
as  to  provoke  speculation  concerning  the  poten- 
tiality of  a  life  so  abruptly  ended. 

In  view  of  our  ambiguous  relations  with  the 
Far  East  the  brief  articles  on  Japan  make  one 
wish  that  Mr.  Weyl  had  been  spared  to  complete 
the  fuller  study  of  the  problem  of  which  these 
articles  were  a  part.  One  of  the  hitherto  un- 
published chapters,  "The  Only  Truly  Revolution- 
ary Class,"  taken  from  an  unfinished  book,  "The 
Concert  of  the  Classes,"  suggests  the  direction  of 
the  author's  thinking  and  increases  regret  at  the 
loss  of  a  more  generous  development  of  the  ideas 
here  presented. 

For  permission  to  reprint  some  of  the  papers 
in  this  volume,  grateful  acknowledgment  is  made 
to  The  New  Republic,  Harper's  Magazine,  Asia 
and  the  National  Post. 


CONTENTS 

TIRED  RADICALS,  7 

THE  ONLY  TRULY  REVOLUTIONARY  CLASS,  17 

EQUALITY,  3 1 

THE  PARTY  OF  THE  THIRD  PART,  39 

THE  NEW  WEALTH,  59 

PROPHET  AND  POLITICIAN,  81 

IN  THE  KING'S  ROBING  ROOM,  103 

THE  CRUMBLING  HOUSE  OF  LORDS,  125 

THE  CONQUERING  CHINESE,  149 

JAPAN'S  THWARTED  EMIGRATION,  1 7 1 

JAPAN'S  MENACING  BIRTH-RATE,  181 

THE  CLASH  OF  THE  RACES,  199 


[6] 


TIRED  RADICALS 


TIRED  RADICALS 

I  ONCE  knew  a  revolutionist  who  thought  that  he 
loved  Humanity  but  for  whom  Humanity  was 
merely  a  club  with  which  to  break  the  shins  of 
the  people  he  hated.  He  hated  all  who  were 
comfortable  and  all  who  conformed.  He  hated 
the  people  he  opposed  and  he  hated  those  who 
opposed  his  opponents  in  a  manner  different  from 
his.  Zeal  for  the  cause  was  his  excuse  for  hating, 
but  really  he  was  in  love  with  hate  and  not  with 
any  cause. 

The  war  came,  and  this  vibrant,  humorless 
man,  this  neurotic  idealist  who  was  almost  a 
genius,  found  a  wider  vent  for  his  emotion.  His 
hatred,  without  changing  its  character,  changed 
its  incidence.  He  learned  to  hate  Germans,  Bol- 
shevists, and  radicals.  He  completed  the  full 
circle  and  soon  was  consorting  most  incongru- 
ously with  those  whom  he  had  formerly  attacked. 
Today  nothing  is  left  of  his  radicalism  or  his 
always  leaky  consistency;  nothing  is  left  but  his 
hatred.  At  times  he  hates  himself.  He  would 
always  hate  himself  could  he  find  no  one  else  to 
hate.  He  is  becoming  half-reactionary,  half-cyni- 
cal. He  will  end — But  who  knows  how  anyone 
will  end? 

Radicalism  loses  little  in  the  defection  of  this 

[9] 


if 


. 

unconsciously  sadistical  agitator,   for  despite  his 
stormy  eloquence  he  was  always  less  embarrassing 
t^Xflto  his  enemies  than  his  friends.     His  case,  how- 
^  ever,   suggests   an   inherent  weakness   in   radical 
^  movements,  an  inevitable  mortality  among  radi- 
cals, traceable  to  wars  and  other  calamities,  but 
"3  e^  due  chiefly  to  the  manner  in  which  radicals  are 

recruited  and  the  kind  of  men  they  are. 
\^  There  are  two  large,  but  not  sharply  defined 
groups  of  radicals;  radicals  by  environment  and 
radicals  by  temperament.  The  first  are  usually 
the  slower  and  surer-footed  because  their  course 
is  controlled  by  the  rut  in  which  they  live;  the 
latter  are  quicker,  more  violent,  more  uncompro- 
mising, less  realistic,  because  their  radicalism 
springs  from  within.  They  would  be  rebels  in 
Paradise  and  reformers  in  the  Garden  of  Eden. 
They  do  not  depend  on  environment  for  their 
passion  but  on  their  own  psychological  disequi- 
librium, their  unsatisfied  emotions,  their  agonizing 
perceptions  of  the  gulf  between  their  ideals  and 
a  world  that  is  always  out  of  joint.  These  men 
hate  all  dogmas  and  conventions  that  press  down 
on  them  and  they  possess  the  gift  of  rebellion. 
But  many  of  them  are  ill-grounded  in  their  be- 
liefs, for  they  have  chosen  a  philosophy  to  suit 
their  nerves,  as  one  chooses  a  wall-paper.  Give 
them  a  war  or  some  other  excitement  and  their 
emotion  is  deflected,  and  their  radical  ideas  "cease 
upon  the  midnight  without  pain." 

There  are  epochs  in  history  when  humanity  be- 
comes tired  and  emotions  age  quicker  than  usual, 
[10] 


and  radicals  disappear.  In  the  last  centuries  of 
the  Western  Roman  Empire,  discouraged  reform- 
ers retired  within  themselves.  Our  own  Civil 
War  depleted  the  store  of  our  emotion  and  for 
a  generation  put  an  end  to  American  idealism. 
So,  also,  the  aborted  Russian  Revolution  of  1905, 
which  destroyed  Russian  radicalism  for  a  decade, 
or  at  least  drove  it  underground.  In  such  periods 
of  reaction  men  who  might  have  been  rebels  be- 
come saints  or  debauches,  depending  on  tempera- 
ment and  circumstances.  At  times  this  day  of 
reaction  is  brief,  a  flicker  of  darkness,  a  thin  black 
line  in  a  brilliant  spectrum.  In  all  these  periods, 
long  or  short,  radicalism  declines  and  radicals 
fall  away. 

At  worst,  however,  it  is  not  a  unique  calamity, 
for  even  in  good  times  age  deals  harshly  with 
radicals.  Adolescence  is  the  true  day  for  revolt, 
the  day  when  obscure  forces,  as  mysterious  as 
growth,  push  us,  trembling,  out  of  our  narrow 
lives  into  the  wide  throbbing  life  beyond  self. 
But  one  cannot  forever  remain  adolescent  and 
long  before  a  man's  arteries  begin  to  harden,  he 
sees  things  more  as  his  father  and  grandfather 
saw  them.  Once  he  becomes  an  ancestor  he  im- 
bibes respect  for  ancestors  and  for  what  they 
thought.  As  young  radicals  grow  older  they 
marry  pleasant  wives,  beget  interesting  children, 
and  begin  to  build  homes  in  the  country,  and  their 
zeal  cools.  Life,  they  now  think,  is  more  than 
reform  or  revolution.  There  are  the  lilies  of  the 
field,  as  sweet  to  radicals  as  to  conservatives,  and 


as  softly  beautiful  as  in  the  days  of  Solomon's 
glory.  Life  is  old  and  tenaciously  conservative, 
and  so  is  Nature — the  stars,  the  sea,  the  moun- 
tains— and  so  is  Society;  and  what  we  are  trying 
to  do  is  only  what  futile  generations  long  dead 
and  rotted  also  tried  to  do.  What  is  the  use  of 
these  endless  efforts  to  budge  the  immovable 
Earth?  What  use  even  to  look  ahead?  You 
"wished  to  know  the  secrets  of  the  future?"  So 
Sylvestre  Bonnard  apostrophizes  the  perverse 
beauty,  Leuconoe,  dead  these  nineteen  hundred 
years.  "That  future  is  now  the  past,  and  we  know 
it  well.  Of  a  truth  you  were  foolish  to  worry 
yourself  about  so  small  a  matter." 

After  all,  thinks  the  tired  radical,  each  of  us 
is  bounded  by  his  own  tight  skin,  and  his  life  is 
wrapped  up  in  his  own  sensations.  If  I  must  have 
a  world  revolution  to  amuse  me  so  much  the 
worse ;  he  is  happier  who  can  dig  his  garden  and 
be  content.  Why  fret?  Let  God  in  His  own 
appointed  time  reform  the  world  that  He  has 
been  rash  enough  to  create. 

Such  is  the  course  from  radical  thought  and 
action,  from  intense  preoccupation  with  the  af- 
fairs of  humanity,  to  self — self-culture,  self-indul- 
gence. Those  who  return  to  self  after  wandering 
through  a  wilderness  of  altruism,  acquire  anew 
something  of  the  child's  fresh  relish  for  simple 
experiences.  They  find  all  sorts  of  important 
little  busy-nesses  and  discover  in  the  small  world 
all  the  absorbing  interests  in  miniature  that  they 
abandoned  in  the  great  world.  The  wearied 

[12] 


Charles  the  Fifth,  abdicating  as  Holy  Roman 
Emperor,  takes  up  life  again  in  a  pleasant  little 
garden  in  Estremadura.  The  deposed  statesman 
who  is  sent  to  jail  recovers  his  interest  in  life  from 
a  solitary  blade  of  grass  forcing  its  way  up  be- 
tween the  flagstones  of  the  prison  yard.  So  the 
tired  radical  in  his  smaller  way  applies  his  grand 
passion  for  Universal  Housekeeping  to  a  micro- 
scopic farm,  and  he  who  aspired  to  overturn  Soci- 
ety (that  obese,  ponderous  and  torpid  Society 
that  hates  to  be  overturned)  ends  by  fighting  in 
a  dull  Board  of  Directors  of  a  village  library  for 
the  inclusion  of  certain  books.  To  what  little 
uses  do  we  descend  and  how  gratefully  1 

If  I  were  the  United  States  of  America  I  would 
give  a  few  acres,  an  agreeable  wife,  two  or  three 
docile  children  and  a  sufficient  tale  of  kine  and 
swine  to  every  discouraged  radical,  replenishing 
him  suitably  like  Job  after  his  trials.  I  would 
make  him  sovereign  over  these  acres  and  leave 
him  there  and  forget  him.  I  would  not  let  him 
loose  on  the  path  which  he  had  tired  of  treading. 
For  progress  is  halted  by  these  tired  radicals  who 
do  not  know  that  they  have  ceased  to  be  radicals. 
They  turn  into  pillars  of  salt.  There  they  stand, 
aging  every  moment  as  though  aging  were  all  they 
had  to  do.  Unconsciously  they  become  sensible, 
glacially  sensible.  They  become  expert  in  the 
science  of  Impossibles;  they  know  better  than 
any  one  else  why  every  thing  is  impossible 
because  have  they  not  failed  in  every  thing? 
Oh,  how  preternaturally  practical  they  become  1 

[13] 


How  they  grow  enamored  of  the  Indifferent 
because  better  than  the  Bad,  and  of  the 
Bad  because  better  than  the  Worse  I  How 
they  decline  into  feeble,  dwarfed  enthusiasms,  the 
pale  ghosts  of  their  former  ambitions  1  But  let 
their  decline  be  smooth  and  their  transition  easy. 
Let  them  tranquilly  convince  themselves  that 
"every  nation  has  the  government  it  deserves," 
that  "progress  comes  by  good  will  alone,"  that  the 
world  will  better  itself  or  that  it  is  past  bettering, 
and  let  them  accept  all  the  other  sedative  aphor- 
isms that  end  gently  in  a  quietistic  philosophy.  Let 
them  even  grow  into  clever  reactionaries,  or  after 
shedding  all  ideals,  become  absorbed  in  business, 
practical  politics  or  pleasure,  retaining  only  an 
ironical,  half-regretful  pity  for  their  callow  days 
of  radicalism.  Let  them  go  peacefully  into  the 
great  monastery  of  Effortlessness,  where  things 
are  left  to  God  or  Inevitable  Social  Evolution, 
and  whence  strife  and  conflict  and  zeal  are  ban- 
ished. 

There  is  no  use  crying  over  those  who  are 
graduated  out  of  Radicalism,  for  the  young  trees 
grow  where  the  old  trees  die.  In  truth  it  is  the 
growth  of  the  young  that  kills  the  old.  The  aging, 
tiring  radical,  who  has  unwittingly  given  hostages 
to  Society  and  knows  what  butcher's  bills  and 
baker's  bills  and  the  wife's  dress  and  the  chil- 
dren's shoes  cost  and  what  a  steady  job  means,  and 
who  has  learned  in  the  course  of  the  years  what 
slow  monotonous  things  revolutions  are,  is  also 
discouraged  by  the  radical  fledgelings  who  being 

[14] 


younger  and  more  ignorant  are  also  more  untram- 
meled,  vehement  and  appealing  than  he.  After 
all,  radicalism  is  a  young  man's  job  and  only  a 
few  older  guides  are  needed,  men  who  preserve  an 
even  balance  between  imagination  and  judgment, 
between  enthusiasm  and  experience,  and  who 
though  old  are  young.  Every  radical  movement 
is  a  relay  race  in  which  a  fresh  runner  seizes  the 
torch  from  the  hand  of  him  who  lags.  It  is  better 
that  the  tired  radicals  who  have  run  their  course 
should  drop  out  of  the  race.  Let  us  therefore 
not  berate  them  and  let  us  beware  of  charging 
them  with  inconsistency,  for  they  are  consistent 
with  the  way  of  life  and  the  law  of  growth.  Let 
us  rather  give  thanks  to  them  and  wish  them 
Godspeed  for  the  youngest  of  us  in  time  may  go 
their  way. 


[15] 


"THE  ONLY  TRULY  REVOLUTIONARY 
CLASS" 


"THE  ONLY  TRULY  REVOLUTIONARY 
CLASS" 

THE  rise  of  the  modern  wage-earning  class  is 
one  of  the  big  facts  of  history.  We  have  always 
had  toilers  and  have  long  had  wage-earners,  but 
we  have  never  before  had  a  separate  class  of 
wage-earners,  conscious  and  even  proud  of  their 
class,  and  willing  to  oppose  the  interests  of  that 
class  to  those  of  other  classes  or  of  Society  itself. 

It  is  the  machine  which  has  created  this  class 
spirit.  The  machine  called  forth  its  millions  of 
wage-earners,  and  these,  congregating  in  cities, 
toiled  and  bred  and  died,  and  toiled  and  bred 
and  died.  Gradually  out  of  an  unnumbered 
horde  of  starvelings,  there  grew  up  a  more  intel- 
ligent, assertive  and  compact  group.  The  prole- 
tarian, the  worker  who  toiled  for  a  wage  and  had 
nothing,  began  to  think,  to  act.  He  struck.  He 
formed  unions,  co-operative  stores  and  political 
parties.  He  dared  look  at  our  whole  social 
structure,  our  factories  and  kings,  our  Parlia- 
ments, churches,  schools  and  courts  of  law  from 
his  own  proletarian  standpoint.  He  dared  to  say 
that  he  would  change  all  these.  He  stepped  for- 
ward as  the  chosen  instrument  in  a  great  social 
revolution. 

It  is  difficult  to  grasp  the  full  significance  and 

[19] 


sweep  of  this  change  from  the  proletarian  deject 
and  wretched  to  the  proletarian  come  to  con- 
sciousness. Formerly  he  was  docile,  insensible, 
unconsidered,  useful,  a  brick  in  the  building,  a 
thing,  a  part  of  our  belongings.  Descended  from 
miserable  toilers,  he  was  born  to  breed  offspring 
in  his  servile  likeness.  Civilization  had  always 
gone  over  his  head.  Now  this  rude  man  stands 
erect  and  menacing.  Thought  is  writing  itself 
upon  his  dull  face.  He  is  a  giant  awakening  from 
the  sleep  of  millenniums.  Men  see  him  with  his 
hand  clenched,  and  do  not  know  what  is  in  that 
hand — a  crushed  olive  branch  or  a  stone. 

There  is  bewilderment  and  confusion  as  this 
son  of  toil  suddenly  appears  amid  a  chaffering 
congregation. 

All  over  the  Western  World,  there  are  whis- 
perings and  quakings  and  soul-questionings. 
There  is  doubt,  there  is  fear ;  there  is  the  boastful 
show  of  confidence  covering  a  cavern  of  despair. 
Men  talk  of  adjustment,  compromise,  war  to  the 
knife.  The  proletarian  must  be  crushed.  He 
must  be  untaught  to  read,  untaught  to  think;  he 
must  be  won  by  kindness ;  he  must  be  mown  down 
by  the  sword. 

If  in  Europe  the  proletarian  has  appeared  sud- 
denly what  shall  we  say  of  his  coming  in  America? 
Yesterday  we  were  still  conquering  the  wilder- 
ness, today  we  are  a  nation  of  cities  and  factories, 
of  trusts  and  slums.  Fifty  years  from  now,  when 
our  children  will  be  still  alive,  our  millions  of 
proletarians  will  be  many,  many  millions;  our 

[20] 


proletarian  problems,  our  labor  problems,  if  un- 
solved, will  be  of  stupendous  magnitude  and  peril. 

Already  the  struggle  is  on.  Though  there  are 
millions  of  wage-earners  who  are  grumblingly 
content  with  their  lot  and  other  millions  who  never 
think  of  their  lot  at  all,  there  still  remains  a  vast 
army  bitterly  disappointed  and  hotly  antagonistic 
to  all  there  is.  Everywhere  are  industrial  evils 
curable  but  uncured;  inequalities  resting  on  no 
rational  basis,  greed  rewarded,  cunning  exalted, 
and  honest  humble  toil  be  praised  and  despised. 
Daily  the  gulf  deepens  between  the  man  at  the 
machine  and  the  man  in  the  counting-house;  daily 
industry  becomes  more  impersonal,  more  coldly 
and  scientifically  objective,  more  firmly  based  upon 
a  division  of  labor,  which  robs  the  worker  of  indi- 
viduality, and  upon  an  anonymity  of  capital,  which 
renders  the  employer  irresponsible.  Problems  in- 
volving the  welfare  and  dignity  of  thousands  of 
workers  are  decided  on  the  basis  of  mere  pecuni- 
ary considerations  by  financiers  who  have  no  real 
sense  of  the  human  factors  involved.  Supply  and 
demand,  output  and  profits  rule  in  the  stead  of 
a  cooperative  spirit  and  a  sense  of  the  social  and 
peculiarly  human  essence  of  the  industrial  prob- 
lems. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  translate  this  purely  pecuni- 
ary spirit  into  the  countless  industrial  evils  which 
are  its  manifestations.  The  waste  of  child  life, 
the  destruction  of  women,  the  killing  and  maim- 
ing of  men  through  accident,  industrial  disease, 
over-work,  insecurity  and  starvation  wages;  the 

[21] 


robbing  of  the  worker's  dignity,  independence 
and  joy  in  his  work,  the  thwarting  of  ambitions, 
the  overhanging  sense  of  an  anonymous  oppres- 
sion— all  these  are  old,  all  have  been  dinned  into 
our  ears  until  we  are  deaf  to  them.  And  yet  to 
them  who  suffer  or  daily  witness  them  these  evils 
are  never  old.  A  dark  spirit  of  revolt  broods 
over  the  labor  world,  revealing  itself  in  occasional 
desperate  ventures,  fierce  and  pitiable.  We  read 
of  obdurate  strikes,  bloody  clashes  with  police 
and  constabulary  desperate  assaults  upon  strike- 
breakers, wanton  destruction  of  property.  We 
catch  glimpses  of  a  truculent  spirit  given  brutal 
expression.  Equally  truculent  and  equally  brutal 
is  the  attitude  of  opponents.  We  read  of  vig- 
ilance committees,  of  embittered  groups  of  cit- 
izens who  tar  and  feather  labor  leaders  and  do 
not  stop  far  short  of  murder.  We  read  of  pow- 
erful associations  organized  "to  smash  unions," 
to  put  spies  into  union  meetings,  to  bribe  union 
leaders,  to  "beat  up"  union  workmen,  to  mobilize 
into  a  professional  strike-breaking  army  the  reck- 
less dissolute  of  the  slum.  Here  and  there  the 
tide  of  passion  rises  until  all  good  will  and  mutual 
accommodation  are  submerged.  In  the  swirling 
stream  of  contending  hatreds,  law,  justice,  and 
morality  are  lost  moorings,  and  brutal  instinctive 
crimes  and  subtle  gentlemanly  crimes  intensify  the 
rancor  which  calls  them  forth. 

Far  more  significant  even  than  these  violent 
outbreaks  is  a  deep-seated  disillusionment  of  mil- 
lions of  prospering  wage-earners.  Beneath  the 

[22] 


surface  of  our  industrial  life,  a  slow  fire  smolders. 
It  is  a  covert,  sullen  discontent,  a  loose  anger 
untrained  and  undirected,  a  dull  sense  of  injustice, 
an  ardent  hope  of  betterment  through  untried 
means.  Millions  of  wage-earners,  feeling  that 
something — they  do  not  know  exactly  what — is 
rotten  in  our  Society,  long  for  a  change  in  what- 
ever direction.  There  is  the  widest  range  of  pro- 
letarian discontent  from  that  of  the  locomotive 
engineer  who  wants  more  dollars  to  that  of  the 
isolated  fanatic,  who  would  prayerfully  set  a  torch 
to  our  whole  Society  though  he  perished  in  the 
ruins. 

Nor  is  this  discontent  likely  to  disappear  of 
itself.  The  fuel  upon  which  the  fire  feeds  is 
heaped  up  constantly.  The  army  of  wage-earners 
grows  at  a  stupendous  rate,  and  its  spirit  of  unity 
does  not  lessen  as  our  industrial  concentration 
proceeds.  We  are  changing  rapidly  from  an  agri- 
cultural to  an  industrial  nation,  and  though  our 
farmers  increase  in  numbers  the  city  proletariat 
increases  far  more  rapidly.  No  longer  is  there 
an  outlet  for  the  discontented  in  beckoning  public 
lands,  where  a  wage-earner  might  always  carve 
out  a  farm.  No  longer  is  land  so  cheap  as  for- 
merly, and  yearly  the  disproportion  increases  be- 
tween the  price  of  the  acre  and  the  dollars  in  the 
pay  envelope.  Yearly  the  cleavage  widens  be- 
tween workers  who  must  rise  from  the  bottom 
and  educated  men  who  enter  industry  upon  higher 
levels  through  college  or  technical  school.  The 
massing  of  wage-earners  in  industrial  cities  and 


suburbs  increases.  Millions  of  proletarians,  grad- 
uating from  public  schools  into  the  common  school 
of  industry,  come  to  believe  that  their  only  chance 
is  within  the  proletarian  ranks,  that  "their  strug- 
gle for  life"  must  take  the  form  of  a  struggle  for 
the  proletariat.  Gradually  there  emerges  the 
doctrine  of  a  necessary  and  inevitable  class  war 
between  wage-earners  and  the  owners  of  the 
means  of  production,  a  doctrine  eloquently 
preached,  held  to  be  justified  by  history  and 
reason,  and  imposed  upon  the  proletariat  for  its 
own  salvation  and  the  salvation  of  society. 

This  is  the  portent  of  today,  the  prophecy 
which  is  thundered  in  our  ears,  and  of  the  fulfill- 
ment of  which  our  headlong  development  is  bring- 
ing us  into  an  attitude  of  comprehension.  The 
sword  of  class  consciousness  is  being  whetted,  and 
its  sharp  edge  will  cut  clean  through  the  body 
social,  sundering  us  into  two  mutually  antagonistic 
groups.  There  is  much  talk  of  peace  and  gentle- 
ness in  this  conflict,  of  struggles  without  hatred 
and  wars  without  bloodshed.  It  is  not,  however, 
wholly  reassuring.  We  look  at  the  square  chins 
of  employers  and  at  the  strong,  steady  hands  of 
workmen,  we  read  accounts  of  labor  struggles  in 
the  past  and  in  this  morning's  paper,  and  we  do 
not  feel  confident  of  a  peaceful  war.  Already 
there  are  open  appeals  to  violence;  already  there 
are  confident  predictions  that  the  sword  alone  will 
cut  the  knot.  "It  is  apparent,"  says  one  of  our 
sociologists,  voicing  a  sentiment  that  is  wide- 
spread, "it  is  evident  that  the  industrial  situation 

[24] 


in  this  country  has  reached  a  point  where  men 
have  despaired  of  relief  through  the  peaceful 
means  of  public  opinion  and  the  ballot,"  and  be- 
lieve "that  only  civil  war  can  readjust  the  situa- 
tion." 

They  who  lightly  predict  a  class  war  without 
realizing  its  probable  horrors  are  like  ignorantly 
valorous  children  playing  with  lyddite.  They  do 
not  know  what  an  explosion  really  is.  Though  the 
doctrine  does  not  necessarily  and  logically  imply 
a  clash  of  arms,  still  the  very  conditions  of  the 
problem  involve  the  possibility  of  a  sanguinary 
physical  struggle.  If  there  be  within  Society  no 
final  arbiter,  no  disinterested  public  opinion,  no 
overriding  law,  to  decide  between  contestants,  if 
the  issue  is  to  be  determined  solely  by  the  relative 
strength  of  the  contending  parties  then  a  real  war, 
with  all  the  brutalities  and  bloodshed  of  a  real 
war,  is  scarcely  evitable.  In  such  a  contest,  neither 
side  in  a  moral  or  a  material  sense,  would  enter 
naked  into  the  arena.  Such  a  conflict  would  be 
far  more  terrible  than  its  dismallest  prophets 
foretell.  It  would  be  a  war  waged  on  both  sides 
by  high  ideals,  a  war  without  hope  of  compromise, 
without  possibility  of  cessation  until  one  principle 
or  the  other  had  conquered,  until  one  group  or 
the  other  had  been  disarmed  or  annihilated.  We 
must  revert  to  international  war  to  parallel  the 
prolific  horrors  of  such  a  conflict,  rooted  as  has 
been  taught,  in  the  very  soil  of  our  economic  de- 
velopment. 

Nor  does  the  material  loss  and  the  suffering  of 


such  a  conflict  measure  its  full  devastation.  Both 
sides  to  such  a  conflict  would  be  encouraged  by 
a  morality  and  a  political  principle,  but  both 
would  lose  in  the  struggle  the  very  idealism  which 
inspired  them.  For  however  high  and  noble  are 
the  ideals  which  lead  to  war,  the  conflict  usually 
leaves  the  contestants  with  their  idealism  burned 
out.  War  is  a  fire  which  consumes,  while  dis- 
playing much  that  is  good  in  men.  Intolerance, 
party  spirit,  unthinking  loyalty,  indispensable  vir- 
tues in  war,  are  vices  in  times  of  peace.  The  war 
spirit  is  an  excusable  reaction  against  evil  condi- 
tions, but  it  is  not  capable  of  making  the  delicate 
adjustments  which  will  change  these  conditions. 

But  is  submission  better  than  war,  even  a  cruel 
and  hopeless  war?  Are  we  to  permit  the  rapidly 
forming  class  consciousness  of  the  workers  only  to 
allow  it  to  rust  in  passivity  while  present  evil  con- 
ditions remain?  Are  we  to  expect  the  wage- 
earner  to  renounce  the  advantage  of  his  growing 
unity  and  accept  in  a  humble  and  grateful  spirit 
the  reforms  and  concessions  dealt  out  to  him  by 
other  social  classes  in  a  spirit  of  wisdom,  caution 
or  humanity? 

Those  who  believe  that  this  is  desirable  or  even 
possible  misunderstand  the  entire  problem.  It 
is  out  of  the  very  progress  of  labor  that  the  prob- 
lem of  labor  arises.  So  long  as  the  worker  is  en- 
slaved there  is  no  more  a  labor  problem  than 
there  is  a  horse  or  an  ox  problem.  There  may 
be  technical  questions  as  to  the  proper  amount  of 
rations  for  the  economical  exploitation  of  the 

[26] 


slave,  but  there  is  no  social  problem.  Similarly, 
so  long  as  the  worker  is  depressed  below  the  level 
of  initiative,  so  long  as  he  is  ignorant,  disunited, 
weak  and  unexigent,  the  problem  is  merely  one  of 
what  shall  Society  do  with  an  inert  mass,  a  prob- 
lem like  that  of  pauperism.  The  labor  problem 
is  what  it  is  today  simply  because  of  the  wage- 
earner's  rise  in  the  scale,  economically,  politically 
and  intellectually,  and  because  of  his  growing 
awareness  of  his  improved  position  and  prospects. 
To  urge  acquiescence  upon  the  wage-earner  is 
therefore  the  height  of  fatuity.  To  urge  him  to 
be  content  with  his  improving  lot,  to  surrender 
the  gain  of  today  on  account  of  the  gain  of  yes- 
terday is  to  urge  him  to  act  upon  principles  diamet- 
rically opposed  to  those  upon  which  the  rest  of  us 
act.  We  are  not  a  little  illogical  in  this  attitude. 
Though  we  deplore  the  conditions  under  which 
the  proletarian  lives,  his  deprivation  of  opportu- 
nity and  the  contraction  of  his  life,  still  we  are 
estranged  by  his  natural  reaction  from  these  con- 
ditions. Yet  what  in  his  case  should  we  do? 
The  American  colonists  were  not  patient,  long- 
suffering  men.  They  destroyed  property,  poured 
other  people's  tea  into  the  harbor,  resisted  the 
orderly  proceses  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  engineered 
a  boycott  which  brought  Great  Britain  to  her 
knees.  American  proletarians,  native  and  for- 
eign, share  in  this  common  revolutionary  heritage. 
True  the  mass  of  proletarians  like  the  majority  of 
any  large  group  are  slow  to  anger.  But  once 
a  strong  minority  has  dug  a  channel  of  revolt, 


the  great  inert  majority  sweeps  along  with  over- 
powering momentum. 

Renunciation  moreover  is  a  virtue  a  trifle  out 
of  date.  Intended  for  the  social  class,  it  is  a 
dubious  virtue  indeed.  Renunciation  is  usually  a 
virtue  of  necessity,  passing  with  the  passing  of 
the  necessity.  Nor  can  we  solace  ourselves 
with  the  thought  that,  once  the  masses  are  re- 
claimed by  their  traditional  religion,  they  will 
return  to  their  former  submission.  All  that  is 
past.  We  have  lost  the  idea  of  a  divinely  or- 
dained servile  class.  We  have  unchained  innumer- 
able ambitions  and  opened  the  door  to  astounding 
successes,  disappointments,  vanities  and  hatreds. 
We  have  lost  Hell,  once  a  scourge  of  the  ambi- 
tious lowly;  we  have  gone  from  a  philosophy  of 
fear  to  one  of  hope.  We  have  planted  our  feet 
firmly  upon  the  planet  and  in  the  midst  of  life  are 
sure — almost  over-sure — of  life.  Collectively  we 
count  our  chances  of  life  by  the  aid  of  mortality 
tables,  betting  against  Death  that  we  shall  live  so 
many  years.  Famines  and  plagues  disappear  and 
we  learn  to  destroy  germs  as  we  destroyed  the 
wild  beasts  of  the  fields.  Fear  vanishes  and  if  we 
wish  to  taste  the  ecstasy  of  dread,  we  must  join 
some  Suicide  Club.  Our  life  has  become  mun- 
dane ;  we  have  shut  the  window  which  looked  out 
upon  the  dimness  of  another  life. 

The  decay  of  other-worldliness  has  enormously 
stimulated  the  demand  for  mundane  success.  It 
is  not  that  millions  of  men  do  not  believe  in  an 
after-life,  but  that  that  after-life  has  lost  its  well- 
defined  metes  and  bounds,  and  its  chief  savor.  As 
[28] 


Heaven  becomes  vaguer,  money,  fame,  success, 
luxury  stand  out  more  sharply  in  the  foreground 
of  men's  hopes. 

All  this  means  a  complete  revolution  in  our  at- 
titude towards  all  our  social  problems.  We  still 
speak  of  a  vale  of  tears,  as  though  life  were  a 
protractive  trial,  a  preparation  for  death,  an  indif- 
ferent preface  to  life  eternal.  But  this  is  mere 
Sunday  talk.  Actually  all  of  us — the  financier 
floating  a  corporation,  the  farmer  selling  his  crops, 
the  grocer  laying  in  his  canned  goods,  the  laborer 
drawing  his  pay  of  a  Saturday — increasingly  want 
the  things  of  this  world,  and  are  willing  to  take 
the  cash  and  let  the  credit  go.  The  laborer,  like 
the  rest  of  us,  may  think  gravely  of  his  ultimate 
repast  with  "the  politic  worms";  but,  however 
devout,  most  of  his  thought  goes  to  his  own 
mundane  needs,  pleasures,  interests  and  compli- 
cations. The  labor  problem  is  not  a  problem  of 
class  renunciation,  but  of  group  and  individual  ex- 
pression. It  is  the  problem  of  securing  for  wage- 
earners,  primarily  through  their  own  efforts,  the 
material  and  moral  conditions  of  life,  health, 
leisure,  recreation,  independence.  It  is  a  problem 
similar  to  that  of  securing  the  bases  of  civilization 
to  the  whole  community. 

This  is  the  seeming  dilemma  with  which  the 
Western  World  is  faced, — what  attitude  to  take 
towards  this  strange  significant  phenomenon,  the 
rise  of  class  consciousness.  It  is  a  new  weapon 
in  the  hands  of  a  great  but  depressed  class.  Is  it 
to  lead  to  a  class  war,  which  will  undermine  the 
bases  of  our  civilization  and  destroy  the  very 

[39] 


wealth  upon  which  our  Society  is  growing?  Are 
we  to  have  hatred,  war  and  failure?  Or  is  class 
consciousness  to  vanish  into  thin  air  and  the  wage- 
earner  to  return  to  his  ancient  loyalties,  his  prob- 
lems and  the  problems  of  civilization  unsolved? 
Or  is  there  a  third  alternative  ? 

No  problem  could  be  more  vital  to  our  civiliza- 
tion. We  have  here  a  large,  not  clearly  defined 
group,  growing  ever  more  powerful,  growing  ever 
larger  within  our  growing  Society,  attaining  self- 
realization  and  pressing  hard  upon  all  our  tradi- 
tional beliefs  and  principles  and  institutions  be- 
cause these  press  hard  upon  it.  We  have  a  series 
of  conditions  and  theories  and  maxims  which  re- 
tard the  progress  and  debase  the  living  conditions 
of  millions  of  our  fellow  citizens.  We  have  a  class 
consciousness  which  sunders  the  classes  and  ap- 
pears sharpest  in  the  sharpest  crises.  The  prob- 
lem is  not  merely  economic  but  peculiarly  human. 
What  is  this  class  consciousness?  What  is  its 
origin,  its  strength,  its  limitations,  its  germ  of 
evil,  its  power  to  cure? 

This  is  the  theme  of  the  present  book.  We  shall 
study  this  class  consciousness,  this  rise  of  a  pro- 
letarian mind,  showing  its  extent  and  its  bounda- 
ries. We  shall  discuss  the  problem  whether  this 
class  consciousness  is  likely  to  be  arrayed  against 
all  other  classes  and  whether  in  such  case  it  could 
be  successful.  We  shall  discuss  whether  and  how 
this  class  consciousness  can  be  used  constructively 
to  build  up  a  new  industrial  era  and  to  bring  co- 
operation and  concert  into  our  troubled  economic 
world. 

[30] 


EQUALITY 


EQUALITY 

LAST  evening  I  happened  by  accident  upon  a 
strange  coming  together  of  the  ends  of  New 
York.  Seated  on  couches  and  chairs  in  the  spa- 
cious, unpretentious  drawing-room  were  unem- 
ployed men,  recruited  from  the  bread-line  and  the 
lodging-houses.  These  unemployed — there  were 
some  thirty  of  them — were  the  guests  of  men 
and  women  prominent  in  the  city  government  and 
in  social  reform.  They  had  been  called  in  to  give 
their  advice  to  experts,  to  explain  how  relief  work 
should  be  organized,  to  discuss  the  infinitely  com- 
plex problem  of  unemployment.  It  seems  absurd 
and  sentimental,  does  it  not?  And  yet  it  was  evi- 
dent that  the  expert  learned  much  from  these 
harassed  men,  who  knew  how  unemployment 
hurts,  and  I  took  pride  in  city  officials  willing  to 
study  in  such  a  book. 

As  I  listened  to  these  unemployed,  as  I  heard 
these  famished  wanderers  tell  of  the  monotonous 
horrors  of  their  life,  of  trudging  night  after  night 
through  cold  empty  streets,  of  sleeping  amid  ver- 
min on  foul  lodging-house  floors  or  on  chairs  in 
the  stench  of  low  saloons,  of  deprivation,  of  deg- 
radation, of  despair,  I  felt  infinitely  abased.  I 
looked  about  me  at  the  well-clad  solicitous  men 
and  women  who  had  come  to  meet  them,  and  in 

[33] 


their  faces  read  the  same  shame  that  I  found  in 
my  own  heart,  the  same  leaden  guilt  of  living  in 
such  a  world.  But  for  the  happy  bulwark  of  cir- 
cumstance they  too  might  have  sunk  into  the  abyss 
and  joined  this  despised  regiment,  useless  because 
unused.  What  could  the  fed  say  to  the  unfed? 
What  hope  could  they  extend?  What  did  their 
slow  plans  for  social  regeneration  mean  to 
wretches  whose  life  would  be  crushed  out  long 
before  such  plans  could  mature? 

Only  the  unemployed  were  without  constraint, 
for  they  had  the  tragic  dignity  of  hopelessness. 
They  stood  up  boldly,  spoke  not  unwisely,  and 
showed  no  humility,  before  men  who  might  have 
housed  and  fed  them  for  months  without  noticing 
the  cost.  It  struck  me  suddenly  that  these  unem- 
ployed men,  being  Americans,  possessed  more  self- 
assurance  than  Englishmen  or  Germans  in  like 
cases  would  have  possessed.  These  wanderers,  de- 
spised even  by  pickpockets,  held  the  stubborn 
conviction  that  after  all  they  were  human  beings 
and  citizens,  equal  to  the  others  in  all  respects 
except  the  accident  of  money. 

Of  course  they  were  not  equal,  if  that  word 
means  anything.  They  had  not  the  health,  the 
vigor,  the  firm  intellectual  grasp.  They  could  not 
reason  a  thing  out;  they  were  too  obsessed  by  the 
sordid  trifles  that  had  become  their  life.  Some 
were  weak  because  they  had  grown  up  in  an  evil 
environment;  some,  no  doubt,  were  handicapped 
before  birth  by  a  fatal  heredity.  What  does 
equality  mean  when  men  are  as  unequal  as  these? 

[34] 


What  equality  could  exist  between  us,  who  sat 
apart,  secure  and  fed,  and  these  friendless  unem- 
ployed, soon  to  be  let  out  again  upon  the  street, 
soon  to  be  redelivered  to  the  life  that  skirts  the 
land  of  beggary  and  crime? 

We  tried  desperately  to  be  equal;  it  was  the 
least  we  could  do.  Were  we  not  all  men  and 
brothers?  We  use  the  title  "brother"  as  men  do 
when  in  the  absence  of  all  social  bonds  they  ap- 
peal to  the  last  shred,  our  common  humanity.  But 
though  our  will  was  excellent,  though  we  were  all 
engaged  upon  a  single  problem,  it  was  not  possible 
even  for  the  short  space  of  three  hours  to  keep 
down  the  barrier.  The  two  groups  instinctively 
separated.  The  unemployed  were  addresed  as 
"you  fellows,"  "friends,"  "boys,"  but  the  title 
"gentlemen,"  which  is  in  vogue  in  almost  every 
section,  was  not  used.  Could  it  have  been  used 
without  derision?  Is  a  man  a  gentleman  with 
whom  society  deals  so  ungently?  To  use  that 
term  of  equality  to  one  whom  you  can  save  from 
slow  starvation  or  permit  to  starve,  whom  you  can 
raise  by  a  nod  or  condemn  to  misery  is  to  mock 
him,  as  though  you  offered  a  flask  of  perfume  to  a 
wretch  dying  of  hunger. 

There  can  be  no  equality,  nor  any  approach  to 
equality,  except  among  men  economically  inde- 
pendent and  economically  comparable.  You  may 
talk  of  equality  or  fraternity,  of  equal  civil  rights, 
of  equal  political  rights,  of  the  brotherhood  of 
man  and  all  the  rest,  but  unless  your  man  has  a 
secure  economic  position,  a  chance  to  earn  his  liv- 

[35] 


ing  in  dignity  and  honor,  he  has  no  rights  what- 
soever. Political  equality  is  a  farce  and  a  peril 
unless  there  is  at  least  some  measure  of  economic 
equality.  What  does  it  avail  the  poor  devil 
trudging  the  streets  without  a  chance  of  bed  or 
breakfast,  that  he  is  an  equal  American  citizen 
with  a  vote  ?  For  what  or  whom  shall  he  vote  ? 
What  interest  has  he  in  all  our  fine  political 
schemes,  in  economy  and  efficiency,  in  democracy 
and  progress,  when  he  himself  after  election  as 
before  is  without  a  job  and  hungry?  If  such  a 
man  sell  his  political  influence  for  whatever  he 
can  get,  who  is  there  to  blame  him? 

We  shall  not  advance  far  in  working  out  our 
American  ideals  without  striking  hard  at  this  in- 
equality which  has  grown  with  the  growth  of  so- 
ciety and  which  produces  insane  fortunes  at  the 
top  and  destitution  at  the  bottom.  When  we  talk 
of  inequality,  we  mean  inequality  of  possessions, 
inequality  of  income,  inequality  of  industrial  op- 
portunity. It  is  not  an  easy  task  to  eradicate  this 
inequality,  nor  is  it  one  which  can  be  solved  in  a 
year  or  a  decade,  for  the  evil  is  rooted  in  com- 
plex conditions  and  in  strong  human  instincts,  and 
some  of  it  is  an  inevitable  result  of  quite  healthy 
economic  processes.  Inequality,  even  in  its  worst 
manifestations,  will  last  long,  for  the  very  reason 
that  it  means  political  inequality,  for  the  very  rea- 
son that  the  man  of  great  fortune  is  the  controller 
of  other  men's  lives  and  other  men's  opinions  and 
votes,  and  that  those  who  have  absolutely  nothing 
join  with  those  who  have  too  much.  The  road 

[36] 


to  equality  is  difficult  and  long.  We  shall  not  even 
approach  our  goal  without  a  national  understand- 
ing of  this  problem,  nor  without  radical  economic 
readjustments,  which  shall  prevent  excessive  pri- 
vate accumulation  at  its  source,  and  give  to  men 
at  the  bottom  of  society  the  economic  as  well  as 
the  educational  bases  of  independence. 


[37] 


THE  PARTY  OF  THE  THIRD  PART 


THE  PARTY  OF  THE  THIRD  PART 

"THE  quarrel,"  opined  Sir  Lucius  O'Trigger,  "is 
a  very  pretty  quarrel  as  it  stands ;  we  should  only 
spoil  it  by  trying  to  explain  it." 

Something  like  this  was  once  the  attitude  of  the 
swaggering  youth  of  Britain  and  Ireland,  who 
quarreled  "genteelly"  and  fought  out  their  bloody 
duels  "in  peace  and  quietness."  Something  like 
this,  also,  after  the  jump  of  a  century,  was  the  atti- 
tude of  employers  and  trade-unions  all  over  the 
world  toward  industrial  disputes.  Words  were 
wasted  breath;  the  time  to  strike  or  to  lock  out 
your  employees  was  when  you  were  ready  and  your 
opponent  was  not.  If  you  won,  so  much  the  bet- 
ter; if  you  lost — at  any  rate,  it  was  your  own 
business.  Outsiders  were  not  presumed  to  inter- 
fere. "Faith!"  exclaimed  Sir  Lucius,  "that  same 
interruption  in  affairs  of  this  nature  shows  very 
great  ill-breeding." 

It  was  not  only  in  strikes,  but  in  all  industrial 
matters,  that  we  believed  it  to  be  an  affair  of  the 
parties  themselves.  We  had  always  been  taught 
that  the  state  should  keep  the  ring,  but  not  inter- 
fere, that  the  wage  relation  was  a  private  relation, 
that  the  enlightened  interest  of  employer  and  em- 
ployee, if  given  full  play,  would  benefit  all.  It 
was  no  business  of  the  community  to  meddle  with 

[4O 


the  community's  business.  "Let  the  state  mind  its 
own  business,"  was  an  axiom  of  politics. 

All  this  is  changing.  The  philosophy  of  laissez- 
faire,  of  let-alone,  is  gradually  eaten  away  by  ex- 
ceptions. It  is  not  so  much  controverted  as 
ignored.  To-day  public  opinion  becomes  the 
dominant  factor  in  industry.  The  public  is  learn- 
ing its  rights  and  its  responsibilities.  It  helps  to 
determine  how,  on  what  conditions,  in  what  cir- 
cumstances, men  shall  work.  It  decides  what  shall 
be  the  hours  of  toil  for  women  and  children.  It 
declares  who  is  right  and  who  is  wrong  in  great 
strikes  which  snap  the  thread  of  industry.  Not 
only  does  it  make  such  decisions,  but  it  enforces 
them  with  invisible  and  intangible  instruments. 

Everywhere  we  find  signs  of  this  keener  interest 
and  this  broader  authority  of  the  public  in  matters 
of  industry.  We  cannot  read  our  morning  news- 
papers, we  cannot  walk  in  the  streets  or  ride  in 
the  cars,  we  cannot  go  to  school,  church,  or  the- 
atre, without  seeing  evidences  of  a  public  inter- 
vention, legal  or  extra-legal,  obvious  or  subtle. 
The  factory  inspector  we  have  long  had  with  us, 
but  year  by  year  his  role  becomes  more  important 
and  more  fully  recognized.  Year  by  year  the  in- 
dustrial codes  of  the  states  expand  and  grow  more 
explicit  and  minute.  Daily  appeals  are  made  for 
public  approbation  of  industrial  acts.  An  impor- 
tant electric  company  advertises  at  great  expense 
that  it  is  saving  the  lives  of  hundreds  of  its  work- 
ers. Other  concerns  vaunt  their  generosity  to 
employees  rather  than  the  cheapness  of  their 

[42] 


wares.  "We  were  the  first,"  advertises  one  auto- 
mobile concern,  "to  establish  profit-sharing  with 
our  employees."  Public  approval  pays;  the  pub- 
lic cares.  The  public  intervents  increasingly  as  its 
interest  in  industrial  matters  becomes  increasingly 
manifest. 

In  times  of  strike  this  interest  of  the  public  be- 
comes especially  clear.  If  half  a  dozen  workmen 
in  a  little  bake-shop  go  out  on  strike,  the  struggle 
is  not  likely  to  be  of  importance  to  the  public. 
Where,  however,  the  number  of  strikers  is  large, 
the  duration  of  the  strike  long,  the  service  that  is 
interrupted  of  vital  importance  and  requiring  con- 
tinuity, where  the  strike  or  lockout  affects  large 
masses  of  the  population — there  the  public  inter- 
est becomes  transparently  obvious.  Our  whole 
industrial  society  is  interdependent;  you  cannot 
remove  one  wheel  without  bringing  the  whole 
machinery  to  a  stop. 

In  many  ordinary  strikes  on  street  railways,  in 
coal-mines,  in  big  manufacturing  industries,  this 
direct  interest  of  the  public  is  made  manifest.  The 
public  wearies  of  being  a  mere  innocent  bystander 
while  the  two  parties  fight  out  their  feud  at  the 
pistol's  mouth.  It  objects  to  being  struck  by  a 
brick  hurled  through  a  car  window.  It  objects 
even  more  strenuously  to  being  deprived  of  ac- 
customed means  of  transportation  to  which  it  has 
accommodated  its  daily  labor  and  its  daily  life. 

All  this,  however,  does  not  measure  the  full 
concern  of  the  public.  How  overwhelming  that 
interest  might  become  would  be  made  clear  in  the 

[43] 


event  of  a  general  railroad  strike.  Suppose  that 
tomorrow  all  the  trainmen  in  the  United  States 
should  strike.  We  do  not  like  to  consider  such 
contingencies;  as  a  nation  we  do  not  believe  in 
earthquakes  except  during  the  shock.  Still,  the 
case,  though  extreme,  is  not  impossible.  Railroad 
employees  have  a  legal  right  to  demand  higher 
wages;  railroad  companies  have  a  right  to  refuse. 

At  the  very  outbreak  of  such  a  strike  provisions 
in  the  inland  cities  would  rise  to  famine  prices. 
The  steady  stream  of  food  would  be  dammed;  the 
milk  supply  would  trickle,  then  disappear;  the 
death-rate  (especially  among  babies)  would 
amount  to  terrifying  figures.  The  strike,  were  it 
to  last  a  fortnight,  would  bring  havoc  and  desola- 
tion. There  would  be  blanched  faces  and  des- 
perate deeds;  there  would  be  vigilance  committees 
and  mobs  of  unemployed  men  storming  city  cen- 
tres where  the  food  commandeered  by  municipal 
authorities  would  be  stored.  The  machinery  of 
industrial  life  would  break  down.  A  month  of 
even  partial  isolation  might  mean  a  dissolution 
of  social  ties  and  a  temporary  reversion  to  bar- 
barism. The  cities,  in  the  grip  of  a  relentless, 
slowly  closing  fist,  would  sicken,  hunger,  starve. 

What  would  happen?  We  cannot  foretell  ex- 
actly what  form  public  action  would  take,  but  we 
do  know  that  the  nation's  paramount  rights  would 
be  upheld,  that  the  stoppage  would  cease,  that 
some  competent  tribunal  would  decide  upon  the 
merits  of  the  controversy.  In  so  desperate  a  sit- 
uation the  legal  right  of  railroads  and  of  men 

[44] 


to  make  such  bargains  as  they  chose  would  be  sub- 
ordinated to  the  nation's  right  of  self-defense. 
When  social  peace,  when  the  very  existence  of 
the  community,  is  at  stake,  everything — private 
property,  private  contract,  law,  constitutions,  pre- 
cedents— give  way.  The  interest  of  the  public 
becomes  dominant,  unique.  It  is  held  to  justify 
any  necessary  action,  legal,  extra-legal,  illegal. 

An  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a  hundred  be- 
lated investigating  committees,  and  actually  the 
public  moves  before  such  devastating  strikes  occur. 
A  public  disapproval,  quick  and  vengeful,  casts 
its  shadow  before.  A  sensitive  mariner  does  not 
wait  till  the  iceberg  strikes  his  vessel;  he  detects 
its  chill  presence  miles  away.  Today  astute  rail- 
road managers  and  equally  astute  presidents  of 
the  great  railroad  brotherhoods  understand  that 
they  may  go  just  so  far  in  the  way  of  bargaining. 
Strikes  on  individual  railroads  occur,  but  a  gen- 
eral railroad  strike,  one  covering  the  whole  coun- 
try or  a  wide  territory,  is  fast  becoming  unthink- 
able. Where  railroad  conflicts  of  such  magnitude 
are  in  question  the  two  parties  may  threaten  a 
lock-out  or  strike;  they  may  creep  to  the  very 
verge  of  the  conflict,  but  not  beyond.  At  the  very 
moment  when  enthusiasts  are  clamoring  for  com- 
pulsory arbitration  in  railroad  disputes,  we  are 
already  approaching  what  in  practice  amounts  to 
such  compulsory  arbitration,  with  the  public  as 
arbitrator. 

In  five  years  sixty  threatened  strikes  upon  the 
railroads  of  the  country  were  averted  through  the 

[45] 


interposition  of  the  public.  Again  and  again  the 
special  representatives  of  the  government  were 
asked  to  mediate,  and  in  no  instance  were  their 
efforts  fruitless.  Neither  side  dares  refuse  arbi- 
tration; neither  side  dares  violate  the  award. 
The  fateful  issues  involved  in  war  make  for 
peace.  What  is  feared  is  not  the  injury  inflicted 
by  the  opponent,  but  the  certainty  that  the  public, 
suffering  grievously,  will  cause  both  sides  to  suffer 
in  turn.  For  the  railroads  and  the  brotherhoods, 
with  their  vast  resources,  could  carry  on  for 
months  a  struggle  which  the  public  could  not  en- 
dure for  weeks.  Neither  side  dares  face  obloquy 
or  sudden  punitive  action  by  the  public.  Public 
opinion  reaches  high  up.  It  cannot  be  shut  out  of 
the  home  of  the  multimillionaire.  It  also  reaches 
down.  The  officers  of  the  trade-union  enter  into 
friendly  social  relations  with  many  elements  of 
the  population.  Nor  are  trade-union  members 
themselves  immune.  Public  opinion  is  expressed 
more  or  less  certainly  by  newspapers  which  appeal 
to  the  very  men  to  whom  the  union  appeals. 
Where  the  interest  of  the  public  is  as  obvious  as 
in  the  case  of  the  railroad,  a  strike  or  lockout  is 
not  to  be  entered  upon  lightly. 

There  are  many  ways,  much  less  obvious,  in 
which  public  opinion  affects  strikes  by  throwing 
the  weight  of  its  sympathy  to  the  one  side  or  the 
other.  It  does  this  often  crudely,  sizing  up  a  sit- 
uation in  the  mass,  expressing  itself  perhaps  some- 
what ignorantly  through  newspapers,  magazines, 
and  protest  meetings.  The  sympathy  of  the  pub- 

[46] 


lie  is  quicker  than  its  sober  judgment;  it  has  little 
interest  in  dialectics  or  fine  distinctions;  it  is  likely 
to  introduce  extraneous  matters  into  decisions;  it 
is  not  always  free  from  prejudice.  None  the  less 
it  acts,  and  acts  decisively,  in  cases  where  it  might 
seem  difficult  to  exert  any  influence  whatsoever. 

Public  opinion  is  not  an  automatic,  self-regulat- 
ing device  in  which  you  put  a  just  cause  into  the 
slot  and  get  out  a  victory.  The  side  with  the  ap- 
proval of  the  public  cannot  rest  quietly,  knowing 
that  right  will  prevail.  Public  opinion,  like  other 
gods,  inclines  not  infrequently  to  the  side  of  the 
big  battalions.  It  helps  those  who  help  them- 
selves. Time  and  heroic  endurance  are  necessary 
to  enlist  it,  for  it  dislikes  labor  disturbances  in 
general  and  hesitates  to  believe  that  conditions 
are  evil  unless  workers  strike  against  them.  Public 
opinion  being  slow  to  awake,  a  strike  must  usually 
last  some  little  time  before  it  is  concentrated  and 
mobilized.  Perhaps  it  is  better  so.  A  social 
group  should  not  rely  too  largely  upon  out- 
siders. Public  opinion  is  a  good  ally,  but  a  poor 
guardian. 

That  public  opinion  is  daily  becoming  more 
potent  in  labor  disputes  is  clearly  shown  by  the 
increasing  endeavor  of  both  sides  to  secure  its 
invaluable  aid.  Skilful  statements  are  issued  by 
each  party;  the  best  points  of  each  are  elucidated 
and  emphasized;  hostile  contentions  are  merci- 
lessly attacked.  When  the  Eastern  railroads  were 
confronted  with  a  demand  for  higher  wages  for 
their  trainmen,  they  posted  up  in  their  stations 

[47] 


carefully  prepared  statements  bristling  with  sta- 
tistics and  arguments.  There  is  often  a  certain 
jockeying  for  position.  The  employers  insert  paid 
advertisements  in  the  newspapers,  showing  that 
their  cause  is  just  or  is  the  cause  of  the  public, 
and  the  strikers  reply  in  interview  or  signed  man- 
ifesto. Both  sides  learn  to  know  the  best  lines 
of  approach  to  the  public  mind,  for  today,  as 
always,  we  are  ruled  by  phrases.  Each  group 
emphasizes  its  most  popular  contentions,  each 
group  puts  its  best  foot  foremost. 

All  of  which  is  new — and  old.  There  was  never 
a  time  when  the  public  was  so  frequently  and  skil- 
fully approached  and  never  a  time  when  each  side 
to  a  controversy  did  not  to  some  extent  appeal  to 
outsiders.  As  early  as  1721  we  find  the  master 
tailors  of  London  seeking  to  direct  public  opinion 
against  the  malicious  "Journey-men  Taylors,"  who 
"have  lately  entered  into  a  combination  to  raise 
their  wages,  and  leave  off  working  an  hour  sooner 
than  they  used  to  do,"  refusing  to  work  and 
"choosing  rather  to  live  in  idleness,"  thus  becom- 
ing "not  only  useless  and  burdensome,  but  also 
very  dangerous  to  the  publick."  Then,  as  now, 
it  was  urged  that  the  strike  was  against  public 
interest,  since  the  men  struck  in  busy  season 
"against  the  King's  Birthday  .  .  .  which  is  a 
great  disappointment  to  gentlemen." 

Doubtless  our  modern  memorialists,  like  the 
master  tailors  of  1721,  are  prone  to  exaggerated 
statement  and  even  to  hypocrisy.  Now  as  then 
both  sides  protest  overmuch.  None  the  less  the 

[48] 


result,  on  the  whole,  is  good.  The  entrance  of 
the  third  party  means  a  certain  moralization  of 
the  strike  and  of  the  whole  industrial  relationship. 
Our  tame  consciences,  so  largely  the  reflection  of 
our  neighbor's  opinions,  awake  in  anticipation 
when  what  we  do  is  to  be  blazoned  forth  in  the 
public  prints.  Public  opinion  may  not  always  be 
a  just  judge,  but  cases  arise  where  any  judge  is 
better  than  none. 

Where,  however,  the  two  parties  themselves 
can  come  to  a  just  settlement,  it  is  better  for  the 
third  party  not  to  interfere.  Mutual  agreement, 
where  possible,  is  better  than  arbitration.  When 
the  parties  in  interest,  respecting  each  other  and 
fearing  each  other,  meet  in  great  industrial  par- 
liaments, and  there  work  out  trade  agreements, 
solemn,  binding  treaties — when  such  arrangements 
are  achieved  by  the  parties  themselves — we  have 
a  development  of  industrial  democracy  more  val- 
uable and  real  than  the  award  of  a.ny  arbitrator. 
Where  the  contestants  are  not  too  unequal  in 
strength  nor  too  disorganized  and  chaotic,  where 
the  public  interest  is  not  immediate  and  over- 
whelming, let  the  issue  be  decided  by  the  parties 
and  reserve  public  opinion  as  a  final  resort.  Some 
knots  should  be  loosened,  not  cut. 

Sometimes,  too,  public  opinion  itself  is  weak 
and  distraught.  Without  concurring  with  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  who  asserted  that  "public  opinion 
is  a  great  compound  of  folly,  weakness,  prejudice, 
wrong  feeling,  right  feeling,  obstinacy,  and  news- 
paper paragraphs,"  we  may  still  admit  that  it  is 

[49] 


not  all-wise  nor  all-powerful.  How  could  it  be 
when  the  public  consists  of  us  and  our  neighbors, 
the  people  in  the  street-cars  and  at  the  baseball 
games?  The  public  is  in  part  careless,  in  part  ig- 
norant, in  part  interested.  It  is  too  often  but  a 
sleeping  giant  flinging  out  with  heavy  fist  against 
friend  or  foe,  hating  to  be  disturbed.  Having 
an  interest  in  peace,  it  does  not  always  inquire 
whether  the  peace  is  honorable. 

Moreover,  public  opinion  solidifies  slowly.  It 
is  not  a  whole  thing — not  a  thing  of  one  piece. 
Some  men  instinctively  side  with  the  workers; 
others  with  the  employers.  Subsidiary  interests 
are  involved.  Some  will  make  money  if  the  strike 
continues  or  is  won,  others  if  the  strike  is  lost. 
Beyond  all  these,  however,  there  is  a  social  group 
cherishing  the  interests  of  society  as  a  whole  (as 
we  all  do  at  times),  who  want  a  strike  settled  or 
averted  only  under  conditions  honorable  to  both 
sides. 

This  basic  public  opinion  is  growing  in  volume 
and  depth.  Attracting  many  people  of  some  leis- 
ure and  education,  it  extends  downward  in  the 
economic  scale  as  industrial  and  educational  op- 
portunities widen,  as  wages  rise,  as  our  high- 
schools  and  colleges  pour  out  greater  numbers  of 
educated  graduates,  and  as  our  new  national 
problems  give  that  education  an  increasingly  social 
turn.  Public  opinion  becomes  democratized.  To 
be  effective,  however,  this  opinion  must  not  only 
swell  in  volume,  but  be  increasingly  directed  into 
proper  channels.  Uninstructed,  untrained,  acci- 

[50] 


dental  public  opinion  drifts  like  a  huge  derelict, 
and  its  impact  is  perilous. 

Slowly,  however,  this  public  opinion  is  being 
unified  and  guided  into  effective  channels.  Ap- 
peals are  made  not  only  to  immediate  interest,  but 
to  wide  sympathies  and  a  common  morality.  A 
distinction  is  made  between  strikes  which  are  nec- 
essary, beneficent,  and  an  education  to  the  work- 
ers and  the  community,  and  those  that  are  waste- 
ful and  disintegrating.  The  public  slowly  learns 
to  uphold  the  right  of  the  weaker.  It  learns  its 
own  right  and  ability  to  secure  its  own  protection, 
to  assure  itself  that  industries  be  not  permanently 
injured,  that  the  human  side  of  the  labor  problem 
be  not  neglected. 

Though  the  weapons  of  this  public  opinion  are 
impalpable,  they  are  many  and  powerful.  Polit- 
ical action  is  one  weapon;  publicity  is  another. 
Business  is  subject  to  law,  and  reforms,  fought  for 
uncertainly  by  hungry  strikers,  may  often  be  more 
surely  obtained  by  well-conceived  laws  secured  at 
the  instance  of  the  whole  community.  Publicity 
is  a  broom  which  sweeps  out  the  dark  corners  and 
corrects,  by  exposing,  evils  which  the  law  cannot 
reach.  Men  who  will  risk  a  punitive  fine  dare  not 
stand  up  to  a  Congressional  committee  or  a  news- 
paper reporter.  Meditation  and  investigation 
are  feared  by  those  who  have  no  justice  in  their 
cause,  and  are  not  only  a  preventive  of  strikes,  but 
also  a  guide  to  the  public  in  its  own  determina- 
tions. We  live  today  in  a  statistical  age.  Statis- 
tics help  us  to  discover  what  is  a  living  wage  and 

[51] 


what  wages  are  actually  paid  in  any  given  indus- 
try. The  public  learns  to  demand  certain  mini- 
mum conditions  in  industry  and  to  judge  by  these 
whether  a  threatened  strike  is  or  is  not  justifiable. 

It  is  not  only  in  strikes,  however,  that  the  public 
has  been  an  innocent  bystander.  If  workers  be- 
come ill  or  are  maimed  in  factories,  it  is  to  the 
public  hospitals  that  they  go;  if  they  work  at  too 
early  an  age,  for  too  long  hours  or  under  evil  con- 
ditions generally,  they  tend  to  become  public 
charges.  In  one  way  or  another  the  unemployed 
also  are  maintained  at  public  expense. 

This  direct  interest  of  the  public  is  strongly 
reinforced  by  a  sympathy  and  a  growing  moral 
sense  which  result  in  a  powerful  assertion  of  pop- 
ular control  in  many  industrial  relations.  The 
vitality  of  this  public  sympathy  can  no  longer  be 
ignored.  Though  fluctuating  and  vague,  it  is 
effective.  No  conception  of  our  modern  life  is  so 
unreal  and  sentimental  as  that  which  excludes  such 
sentiment  from  the  category  of  social  mo- 
tives. The  public,  semi-uninformed  but  learn- 
ing, stretches  across  class  lines,  grows  slowly  into 
self-consciousness,  and  exerts  its  new  power  wisely 
and  unwisely — and  increasingly. 

This  new  social  consciousness  is  partly  reflected 
in  what  is  called  "welfare  work,"  an  industrial 
house-cleaning  in  which  the  employer  wields  the 
broom.  Much  may  be  justly  urged  against  such 
welfare  work.  Being  a  reform  from  the  top,  it  is 
not  nearly  so  valuable  as  are  democratic  reforms 
secured  by  the  workers  themselves  or  by  the  com- 

[52] 


munity.  At  times  it  is  resorted  to  merely  for  the 
purpose  of  making  more  democratic  reforms  im- 
possible. What  is  given  with  one  hand  is  occa- 
sionally taken  away  with  the  other. 

There  still  remains,  however,  a  wide  margin  of 
possible  benefit  in  such  internal  reform  of  industry, 
made  by  employers  for  the  benefit  of  employees. 
It  is  natural  that  the  more  intelligent  and  public- 
spirited  employers  should  so  act.  Such  men  grad- 
ually imbibe  a  more  social  view  of  industry,  learn- 
ing it  not  only  as  members  of  the  public,  but  as 
parties  to  conflicts  and  controversies  in  which  the 
public  has  intervened.  Even  employers  who  have 
not  yet  attained  to  a  democratic  conception  of  in- 
dustry, and  who  merely  provide  cottages  and 
baths  and  midday  lunches  in  the  spirit  in  which 
medieval  magnates  built  churches — even  such  as 
these  become  imbued  with  a  vague  sense  that  the 
public  has  a  just  interest  and  enforceable  rights  in 
the  whole  industrial  relation. 

The  development  of  welfare  work  or  "indus- 
trial betterment"  has  been  rapid  and  continuous. 
Humane  and  far-sighted  employers  have  im« 
proved  their  factories  and  shops,  built  "model" 
homes  for  their  employees,  and  furnished  airy  and 
cheerful  dining-rooms  in  which  good  meals  are 
provided  at  cost.  Baths,  night-schools,  kinder- 
gartens, recreation  centres,  have  been  provided 
for  the  workers.  In  some  of  these  schemes  a 
large  measure  of  democratic  management  is  pre- 
served; in  certain  others  the  government,  though 
paternalistic,  is  at  least  far-sighted  and  scientific. 

[53] 


A  department  of  health  and  economics  is  main- 
tained by  one  large  employers'  association,  which 
not  only  provides  recreation,  comfort,  and  san- 
itary conditions  for  its  employees,  but  also  care- 
fully studies  the  effect  of  such  improvements  upon 
the  productiveness  of  the  force.  From  this  point 
to  the  establishment  of  general  standards,  which 
will  soon  be  enforced  by  law  and  public  opinion, 
is  but  a  step. 

What  is  most  significant  about  this  programme, 
however,  is  not  the  actual  reform  accomplished, 
although  that  is  not  negligible,  but  the  fact  that 
many  benevolent  employers  advertise  their  benev- 
olence. Everywhere  we  find  great  manufacturing 
establishments  spending  huge  sums  of  money  to 
inform  the  public  that  they  treat  their  employees 
humanely.  It  pays  the  employer  to  let  the  public 
know  this.  It  pays  because  the  public  cares.  Back 
of  the  far-sightedness  of  individual  employers 
lies  the  sympathetic  concern  of  a  wide  public. 

In  protective  legislation  for  workmen  this  in- 
fluence of  the  public  stands  out  even  more  clearly. 
Labor  legislation  has  been  slow  and  difficult  in 
the  United  States.  Gradually,  however,  public 
opinion  penetrates  into  the  inmost  fields  of  indus- 
trial life,  and  year  by  year  laws  are  passed  for 
the  benefit  of  the  worker,  protecting  life,  limb, 
health,  wage,  and  morality.  Night  work,  Sunday 
work,  the  toil  of  women,  of  children,  and  even 
of  men,  are  regulated  or  forbidden  by  statute. 
Laws  are  passed  to  exclude  workers  from  labor 
for  which  they  are  not  fitted,  to  protect  them  from 

[54] 


dangerous  machines  and  insanitary  conditions,  to 
compel  frequent  payment  of  wages,  to  prohibit 
the  truck  system,  to  provide  for  factory  inspec- 
tion by  state  officials.  This  legislation,  though 
demanded  by  the  workers  themselves,  is  approved 
and  secured  by  public  opinion. 

The  chief  beneficiaries  of  this  benevolent  inter- 
position are  the  weaker  and  more  exploited  work- 
ers— especially  the  children.  Child  labor  is  no 
new  thing  in  America.  In  the  early  thirties  the 
Massachusetts  mills  were  full  of  young  children 
and  the  Massachusetts  schools  half  empty.  A 
child  of  any  age  might  work  any  number  of  hours. 
Public  opinion  was  inert.  Today  almost  every 
state  has  a  dhild-labor  law,  good,  bad,  or  indif- 
ferent, and  yearly  the  laws  improve.  The  public 
is  slowly  convinced  that  children — every-day,  or- 
dinary children — are  a  national  asset.  No  longer 
is  a  private  agreement  between  the  employer  and 
the  child's  careless  parents  inviolable.  The  public 
insists  that  there  is  a  third  party  to  the  contract, 
that  this  third  party  has  interest  overriding  the  in- 
terests of  the  two  other  parties. 

Women  also  come  under  the  protection  of  law 
and  public  opinion.  Women  have  always  been 
largely  employed.  In  some  of  our  great  industries 
they  were  more  important  proportionately  three 
generations  ago  than  they  are  today.  They  are 
now,  however,  as  they  have  always  been,  relatively 
defenseless.  Their  wages  are  low,  their  skill  is 
low,  they  are  easily  replaced.  For  the  most  part 
they  form  a  fluctuating  group  of  young  persons, 

[55] 


hoping  to  marry,  and  as  yet  incapable  of  forming 
trade-unions  as  powerful  and  aggressive  as  are 
those  of  the  men.  For  this  very  reason,  because 
of  their  weakness,  the  state  intervenes.  Public 
opinion  works  also  outside  the  law.  There  grows 
up  a  subtle  social  code  which  visits  with  disappro- 
bation the  exploitation  of  girl  workers,  and  which 
applauds  wholeheartedly  the  efforts  of  individual 
employers  to  improve  conditions. 

How  far  public  opinion  is  to  go  in  this  reshap- 
ing of  our  industrial  life  no  one  can  safely  predict. 
That  it  will  go  far,  however,  is  inevitable.  The 
force  making  for  reform  is  not  spent;  the  ideals, 
already  formed,  are  not  nearly  attained. 

As  public  opinion  advances  it  revolutionizes 
all  our  social  ideals.  Business,  it  is  true,  remains 
business,  competitive,  aggressive,  pushing,  not  a 
school  of  the  virtues,  not  a  moral  gymnasium.  At 
the  same  time,  without  .excessive  fussiness  or  ham- 
pering of  individual  effort,  there  remains  a  widen- 
ing opportunity  to  improve  and  moralize  the  in- 
dustrial relation  through  public  opinion.  We  are 
shifting  the  centre  of  the  industrial  universe; 
more  and  more  that  world  revolves  around  the 
man  who  works  rather  than  about  product  or 
profit.  Industrial  accidents,  industrial  disease, 
low  wages,  excessive  toil,  industrial  autocracy, 
encounter  an  ever-stronger  public  condemnation. 

To  accomplish  our  new  industrial  purposes  we 
are  gradually  evolving  a  complex  machinery  by 
which  the  party  of  the  third  part  makes  manifest 
and  effective  its  will.  Great  strikes  and  lockouts 

[56] 


vitally  affecting  the  public  welfare  are  by  one 
device  or  another  prevented  from  becoming  too 
disastrous.  Investigation,  mediation,  arbitration, 
legislation,  circumscribe  and  limit  such  clashes. 
Public  opinion  and  public  law  determine  more  and 
more  definitely  what  is  a  fair  and  reasonable  con- 
duct of  industry,  what  is  to  be  forbidden  and 
what  permitted  in  the  public  interest.  Vast  insur- 
ance and  other  plans  are  devised,  making  for  co- 
operation between  the  two  parties  for  the  main- 
tenance of  peace  and  a  nearer  approach  to  justice. 
More  and  more  the  public  sets  its  approval  upon 
great  parliaments  of  industry,  in  which  unions 
and  associations  of  employers  meet  together  to 
form  treaties  of  peace.  Stability,  continuity,  se- 
curity, and  minimum  standards  of  life  and  labor 
are  gradually  approached. 

We  are  today  only  in  the  beginning  of  this 
progress.  There  will  be  much  warfare,  and  peace 
will  never  be  absolute;  many  experiments  will 
break  down  before  success  is  attained.  Progress, 
however,  will  continue.  The  most  hopeful  sign 
in  our  modern  industrial  relations  is  the  growing 
interest  and  the  wider  and  more  active  participa- 
tion by  a  public  growing  gradually  in  intelligence 
and  social  consciousness. 


[57] 


THE  NEW  WEALTH 


THE  NEW  WEALTH 

IT  is  a  far  cry  from  the  present  day  to  that  long- 
ago  morning  in  1732  when  there  issued  from  the 
presses  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  printer,  the  first 
damp  pages  of  "Poor  Richard's  Almanac."  Poor 
Richard  escaped  the  common  fate  of  almanacs, 
which  are  not  presumed  to  outlive  their  year.  It 
survived  because,  more  than  any  other  publica- 
tion, it  expressed  the  practical  ethics  of  the  people, 
their  shrewd,  hard,  humorous  sense.  It  was 
America's  living  philosophy  at  a  time  when  Amer- 
ica was  still  poor.  It  appealed  to  apprentices, 
journeymen,  tridesmen,  husbandmen,  fishermen, 
and  whalers;  to  a  whole  population  of  poor,  am- 
bitious men.  It  preached  to  these  ambitious  poor 
the  ethics  of  ambitious  poverty.  It  preached  self- 
reliance,  individual  success,  sobriety,  frugality,  in- 
dustry. 

Let  us  listen  to  these  teachings.  "Time  is 
money,"  says  Poor  Richard,  "credit  is  money; 
money  begets  money."  "He  who  kills  a  breeding 
sow  destroys  all  her  offspring,  to  the  thousandth 
generation."  "After  industry  and  frugality," 
says  Poor  Richard,  "nothing  contributes  more  to 
the  raising  of  a  young  man  in  the  world  than 
punctuality  and  justice  in  all  his  dealings."  It  is 
all  very  canny,  near-viewed,  and  common-sensible. 
It  is  the  early  American  version  of  that  immortal, 
[61] 


ever-rewritten  book,    "How   to   Get   On   in   the 
World." 

Yet  how  strangely  sounds  the  worldly  wisdom 
of  that  day  in  the  ears  of  the  worldly  wise  of 
today!  Is  it  still  all  true?  Is  it  still  true  in  the 
same  sense  as  before?  In  this  day  we  beware  of 
being  over-industrious  or  over-frugal.  To  work 
too  hard  and  too  long  is  to  work  yourself  out,  and 
conservation,  like  sundry  other  virtues,  begins  at 
home.  It  is  not  economy  to  save  overmuch  on 
clothes,  which  are  the  poor  young  man's  adver- 
tisement. We  must  dress  up  to  our  jobs,  even  to 
the  jobs  we  merely  hope  to  get.  Success,  more- 
over, depends  not  a  little  on  environment,  on 
luck,  on  the  favor  of  others.  Chances,  astounding 
and  romantic,  come  to  those  who  stand  and  wait 
as  well  as  those  who  toil  continuously.  Our  future 
may  depend  less  on  the  hours  that  we  work  today 
than  on  the  words  or  the  smile  we  exchange  with 
some  anonymous  fellow-passenger  in  the  office- 
building  elevator.  America  has  changed  since 
1732. 

Of  that  multiform  and  complex  change,  no  sin- 
gle factor  is  more  important  than  the  astounding 
increase  in  our  national  wealth.  Whoever  studies 
the  statistics  of  that  wealth,  of  our  commerce, 
banking,  insurance,  manufacturing,  mining,  agri- 
culture, understands  forthwith  why  the  excellent 
virtues  of  Poor  Richard  .seem  a  trifle  old-fash- 
ioned. Nor  are  statistics  necessary.  One  need  but 
look  out  upon  the  face  of  the  country  to  see  every- 
where signs  of  an  abounding  prosperity.  In  total 

[62] 


wealth  America  easily  leads  the  world;  in  propor- 
tion to  population,  we  are  among  the  wealth- 
iest, if  not  actually  the  wealthiest,  of  nations. 
Even  more  significant  is  the  rate  of  our  accumula- 
tion. The  statistics  which  indicate  this  accumula- 
tion are  from  certain  points  of  view  unsatisfac- 
tory, unmeaning,  and  even  misleading,  but  they 
at  least  confirm  direct  impressions  and  are  worth 
quoting.  From  seven  billions  of  dollars  in  1850 
our  national  wealth  increased  by  1912  to  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty-seven  billions.  America,  poor  in 
1732,  still  relatively  poor  in  1850,  is  now  growing 
astoundingly,  one  might  almost  say  fantastically, 
rich,  despite  its  ever-remaining  fringe  of  hopeless 
poverty. 

This  wealth  does  not  mean  degeneration. 
There  is  an  old  and  stubborn  belief  that  poor  na- 
tions are  honest,  rugged,  industrious,  and  pious, 
while  rich  nations  are  faithless  and  decadent. 
"Ill  fares  the  land,"  proclaims  the  poet,  "to  has- 
tening ills  a  prey,  where  wealth  accumulates  and 
men  decay."  The  sociologist,  however,  fails  to 
find  any  necesary  connection  between  poverty  and 
virtue,  between  wealth  and  vice.  All  our  statis- 
tical tests  disprove  the  ancient  doctrine  that  ac- 
cumulation of  wealth  means  decay  of  men.  Pros- 
perity has  its  uses  as  well  as  adversity,  and  each 
has  its  customary  virtues  and  vices. 

It  is  true  that  prosperity  creates  new  problems. 
Wealth  often  produces  inequality,  changes  modes 
of  life,  separates  rich  from  poor,  and  sows  the 
seeds  of  hatred  and  distrust.  As  a  poor,  undiffer- 

[63] 


entiated  community  acquires  wealth,  and  this 
wealth  comes  to  men  unequally,  classes  arise,  and 
men  dress,  live,  get  money,  marry,  and  fight  ac- 
cording to  the  traditions  and  morality  of  their  own 
class.  Luxury  enters.  Sparta  cannot  maintain 
her  strict  regimen,  her  iron  money,  her  rigid 
simplicity  and  hardness  of  life,  once  the  Lacedae- 
monians acquire  wealth.  When,  under  Solomon, 
Judea  becomes  opulent,  classes  arise,  morality  and 
religion  itself  become  gilt-edged,  and  eloquent 
prophets  preach  in  vain  against  the  avarice,  cru- 
elty, and  pride  of  the  rich.  In  Egypt,  Babylon, 
Carthage,  great  wealth  involves  subtle  and  revolu- 
tionary changes. 

There  are  men  who  believe  that  as  Rome  grew 
rich  and  fell,  so  America  will  grow  rich  and  fall. 
Wealth  will  beget  luxury,  and  luxury  will  breed 
a  weak  race  of  soft-handed  men.  We  shall  sur- 
render ourselves  to  a  feverish,  unresting  search 
for  gold.  The  rich  will  despoil  the  poor  and  cor- 
rupt the  law.  In  such  a  mercenary  common- 
wealth, writes  a  great  American  teacher,  "the 
magistrates  of  the  nation  will  judge  for  a  consid- 
eration, the  priests  thereof  will  teach  for  hire, 
the  prophets  thereof  will  divine  for  money,  the 
princes  thereof  will  be  companions  of  thieves; 
every  one  loving  gifts  and  following  after  re- 
wards." 

The  error  in  these  doleful  predictions  lies  in  a 
failure  to  distinguish  between  ancient  wealth  and 
modern.  The  analogy  with  Rome  halts  on  all- 
fours.  Rome  suffered  not  because  it  was  wealthy 

[64] 


(it  was  poor  compared  to  the  England,  France, 
Germany,  or  America  of  today),  but  because  its 
wealth  was  ill-gotten,  ill-used,  and  ill-distributed. 
Wealth  came  to  Italy  through  exactions  from 
conquered  populations,  not  from  the  labors  of  free 
Roman  citizens,  and  such  spoliation  destroys  booty 
in  the  taking.  Nor  did  the  wealth,  so  obtained, 
go  back  into  productive  enterprises.  It  was 
squandered  on  palaces  and  arches,  on  armies,  and 
on  hordes  of  destitute,  careless,  and  oppressed 
proletarians.  It  flowed  into  the  leaking  coffers 
of  gluttonous  senators,  instead  of  spreading  wide 
among  an  industrious  population. 

To  learn  the  influence  of  American  wealth  upon 
American  character  and  conditions  we  must  study 
our  problem,  not  in  Rome  or  Judea  or  Carthage, 
but  nearer  home.  We  must  clear  our  minds  of  the 
inveterate  prejudices  that  cluster  about  our  con- 
ceptions of  wealth,  and  must  look  at  the  results 
of  our  modern  accession  of  wealth  as  they  ob- 
trude themselves  upon  our  view  everywhere. 

The  most  striking  result  of  these  greater  pos- 
sessions of  ours  is  a  rapid  increase  in  American 
luxury.  "Easy  come  easy  go"  is  the  maxim  of 
all  get-rich-quick  civilizations.  As  wealth  grows 
the  multitude  of  hard-working  spenders  grows 
also,  and  there  develops  simultaneously  a  leisure 
class  which  escapes  our  common  debt  of  labor 
and  lives  at  its  ease,  though  not  always  easily, 
upon  the  annual  fruits  of  vast  private  accumula- 
tions. 

At  no  time,  of  course,  was  luxury  completely 

[65] 


absent  from  America.  Men  spend  when  the  purse 
is  full,  even  though  the  purse  be  small.  Not  all 
the  sumptuary  laws  of  seventeenth-century  Massa- 
chusetts could  prevent  sober  Puritans  from  launch- 
ing into  extravagance ;  from  purchasing  apparel — 
"wollen,  silke,  or  lynnen,  with  lace  on  it,  silver, 
golde,  silke  or  threed."  Even  the  pious  slid  back 
into  embroidered  doublets  with  slashed  sleeves, 
into  "gold  or  silver  girdles,  hatt-bands,  belts, 
ruffs,  beavr  hatts,"  while  women  of  no  particular 
rank  appeared  in  forbidden  silk  and  tiffany  hoods. 
A  century  later  we  encounter  disapproval  of  John 
Hancock's  "show  and  extravagance  in  living,"  of 
his  French  and  English  furniture,  his  dances,  din- 
ners, carriages,  wine-cellars,  and  fine  clothes. 
Washington  starved  with  his  soldiers  at  Valley 
Forge,  but  lived  like  an  English  gentleman  in  his 
home  at  Mount  Vernon.  Luxury,  pomp,  cere- 
monial were  not  absent  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, and  even  ardent  democrats,  who  cheered 
Citizen  Genet  and  the  glorious  principles  of  '89, 
and  who  dearly  hated  all  aristocrats,  were  not 
beyond  the  temptation  of  an  occasional  venial 
luxury. 

Fundamentally,  however,  the  prevailing  spirit 
of  America,  especially  in  the  North,  was  averse 
to  high  living  and  ostentation.  Puritanism  was 
dominant.  Its  grave,  earnest,  ascetic  conception 
of  life  and  its  strong  antagonism  to  worldly  pleas- 
ures were  strongly  reinforced  by  a  social  poverty 
which  made  the  immoral  luxuries  difficult,  if  not 
unattainable.  It  was  virtuous  to  toil  and  scrimp, 

[66] 


because  capital  was  scarce  and  hard  working  and 
hard  saving  were  necessary.  Many  of  our  vir- 
tues are  of  this  color  and  derivation.  They  are 
rooted  in  the  soil  of  stern  necessity. 

Even  after  the  need  for  saving  had  departed, 
luxury  was  held  back  by  tradition.  There  was 
a  stalwart  prejudice  against  it,  and  innumerable 
Biblical  texts  of  incontestable  validity  backed  up 
the  prejudice.  Gradually,  however,  one  "younger 
generation"  after  another  moved  further  along 
the  primrose  path  of  spending.  Religious  sanc- 
tions dissolved;  descendants  of  Puritans  compro- 
mised; the  comfortable  children  of  frugal  Friends 
abjured  gray  and  affected  finery  long  before  they 
forgot  their  "thee's"  or  dropped  the  pious  custom 
of  calling  Sunday  "First  Day."  Each  decade  in- 
troduced new  and  unseemly  luxuries,  and  genera- 
tions of  moralizing  old  gentlemen  and  ladies,  who 
in  their  youth  had  themselves  been  moralized  over, 
now  shook  their  white  heads  sadly  over  the  calam- 
itous decay  of  American  simplicity.  By  1840, 
a  nervous,  high-tensioned,  quickly  growing  Amer- 
ica of  canals  and  railroads  and  speculative  West- 
ern farms  was  spending  at  a  rate  which  broke  all 
conventions;  by  the  early  sixties,  sudden  new  ex- 
panding fortunes,  born  of  the  war,  demanded,  and 
obtained,  a  spectacular  expression. 

It  is  a  curious  commentary  on  the  way  our 
human  minds  work,  that  in  the  very  midst  of  the 
desperate  carnage  of  our  Civil  War,  men  who 
were  not  unpatriotic  found  the  heart  to  spend  mil- 
lions in  strident  and  vaunting  amusements.  While 

[67] 


the  armies  in  the  field  were  being  clumsily  butch- 
ered, while  long  trains  were  bringing  up  fevered 
cripples  to  overcrowded  hospitals,  the  vainglo- 
rious new-rich  of  the  North,  fresh  from  dubious 
army  contracts,  opened  wide  their  bulging  pockets. 
At  Saratoga,  women  in  costly  creations  from  Paris 
flirted  and  strenuously  dawdled,  while  the  men 
were  "liquoring  up"  and  gambling  at  track  and 
table.  Never  before  were  theatres  so  crowded; 
never  before  were  negro  minstrels  so  tumultuously 
acclaimed.  Italian  and  German  opera  flourished. 
The  curled  and  crinolined  "young  persons"  and 
the  white-vested  and  chokered  "dandies"  invaded 
Broadway  stores,  where  Brussels  carpets,  dia- 
monds, pearls,  and  camel's-hair  shawls  rose  to 
unprecedented  prices  in  the  depreciated  currency. 
Extravagance  became  a  cult. 

But  this  luxury,  though  it  confounded  our 
fathers  and  filled  our  foreign  critics  with  the 
sense  of  an  invincible  and  wicked  American  levity, 
was  niggard  parsimony  compared  with  the  spend- 
ing of  to-day.  We  need  not  here  describe  that 
spending;  it  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge 
and  notorious.  We  have  been  adequately  de- 
rided by  native  and  foreign  critics  for  our  mal- 
adroit spending,  our  wanton  extravagance,  our 
vast  and  ludicrous  adventures  as  art-collectors  and 
castle-buyers.  The  constricted  palaces  which 
crowd  Fifth  Avenue,  the  "cottages,"  country 
houses,  private  parks,  private  cars,  steam-yachts, 
bronzes,  canvases,  ivories,  and  jewels  of  our 
wealthy  fellow-citizens  have  been  duly  chronicled 
[68] 


by  laudator  and  satirist.  Perhaps  we  have  even 
exaggerated  the  pathetic  absurdity  of  some  of 
these  purchases.  Not  all  have  been  as  grotesque 
as  is  commonly  supposed;  not  any  has  been  as 
significant. 

After  all,  this  loose  spending  of  multi-million- 
aires, though  stupendous  in  its  aggregate,  remains, 
in  proportion  to  the  total  outlay  of  our  hundred 
million  Americans,  a  very,  very  small  thing.  It 
is  merely  a  straw  in  the  wind.  Its  true  signifi- 
cance lies  in  its  indication  of  a  custom  and  atti- 
tude more  general,  in  its  hinting  at  a.  wider  lav- 
ishness — a  lavishness  which  affects  not  only  the 
immoderately  wealthy,  but  also  the  well-to-do,  the 
comfortable,  the  men  in  straitened  circumstances: 
in  fact,  all  classes,  not  entirely  excluding  the  poor. 

Wherever  we  look  we  find  evidences  of  this 
new  prodigality.  The  statistics  of  our  consump- 
tion of  wealth  tell  a  consistent  story  of  gradually 
rising  standards  of  living.  Our  growing  love  of 
athletic  sports,  baseball,  golf,  riding;  our  increas- 
ing patronage  of  opera,  theatre  moving-picture, 
and  circus;  our  epidemic  of  motoring — are  all 
effects  of  this  powerful  impulse.  Even  more  sig- 
nificant is  our  enormously  increased  expenditure 
for  dress.  To-day,  more  than  ever  before,  "the 
fashion  wears  out  more  apparel  than  the  man." 
The  advertisements  in  newspaper  and  magazine, 
as  well  as  the  wide  offerings  of  department  stores, 
indicate  the  extent  of  the  new  spending. 

Much  of  this  expenditure  is  wise  and  educa- 
tive. Pleasure  is  good;  spending  is  not  bad;  lux- 

[69] 


ury  lies  along  the  path  of  the  race's  progress. 
Even  ostentation  itself  is  not  all  evil.  Where  our 
spending  is  bad  is  where  we  do  not  perceive  the 
ordained  limits  of  pleasure.  It  is  only  enjoyment 
in  ignorance  and  excess  that  is  evil.  The  fortune 
which  is  the  making  of  the  man  who  makes  it  is 
the  undoing  of  the  headlong  youth  who  inherits 
it,  his  pulses  beating  fast.  All  pleasures  in  ex- 
cess lead  to  pain;  all  are  limited  by  capacity  of 
nerves  and  brain.  Doubling  wealth  is  not  dou- 
bling pleasure;  a  hundred-dollar  mechanical  doil 
may  be  less  "fun"  than  a  ten-cent  rag  baby. 
Above  all,  pleasure  is  limited  by  the  time  to  enjoy 
it;  in  enjoyment,  time  is  more  than  money. 

It  is  forgetfulness  of  this  fact  which  makes 
much  of  our  American  spending  banal  and  sterile. 
With  much  money  to  spend  and  few  hours  in 
which  to  spend  it,  we  become  addicted  to  quick, 
concentrated,  expensive  pleasures.  We  cannot 
imitate  the  placid,  fruitful  economy  of  the  Teu- 
ton, who  takes  his  beer  and  music  inexpensively 
and  at  his  leisure.  Nor  are  we  like  that  abstem- 
ious German  professor  who,  on  his  vacations, 
traveled  on  the  slowest  Bummehug  because  that 
way  the  joyous  trip  lasted  longer.  The  meteoric 
flights  of  our  tourists  through  Europe  are  in 
point;  the  automobile,  also,  illustrates  the  nerv- 
ousness and  swiftness  of  our  pleasures.  Motor- 
ing is  broadening  and  delightful,  but  we  are  rush- 
ing into  this  amusement  with  more  than  our  usual 
national  abandon,  and  hardly  even  find  time  to 
speed.  When  a  pleasure  becomes  the  vogue,  con- 

[70] 


veniences  and  even  necessities  are  sacrificed  to  it. 
We  are  like  those  travelers  of  old  who  sold  their 
lands  to  see  other  men's. 

As  spending,  good  and  bad,  becomes  more  lav- 
ish, and  indulgence  in  many  pleasures,  common 
and  venial,  there  follows  a  relaxation  of  strict  old 
customs.  Dancing  and  card-playing  cease  to  be 
the  lure  of  the  Evil  One,  and  a  lady  of  excellent 
repute  may  smoke  an  after-dinner  cigarette  or 
take  a  "high-ball."  The  theatre  competes  rather 
effectively  with  the  church  sewing-circle,  and  a 
rigid  disapproval  of  enjoyment  is  banished  to 
country  districts  more  and  more  remote. 

All  these  new  morals  and  manners,  introduced 
by  our  accession  of  wealth,  do  not  mean,  how- 
ever, that  American  nature  has  been  fundamen- 
tally altered.  National  character  changes  slowly; 
what  we  call  a  revolution  in  such  character  is 
nothing  but  an  inconsiderable  change  in  the  rela- 
tive influence  of  different  groups.  Doubtless  there 
lived  in  Puritan  England  witty,  gay,  and  roister- 
ing gentlemen  who  preferred  cock-fighting  to 
psalms  and  a  bawdy  song  to  an  orthodox  sermon. 
Under  the  Restoration,  in  a  merrier  but  laxer 
England,  there  lived  Miltons  and  Bunyans  and 
Praise  God  Barebones  who  would  have  gone  to 
the  stake  sooner  than  to  the  playhouse.  In  the 
earlier  time  the  precisian,  in  the  later  the  easy- 
going, sensual  man,  was  in  the  ascendant.  Both 
groups,  however,  lived  at  both  times,  and  their 
relative  numbers  probably  changed  but  slightly. 

Today,  as  always,  two  temperaments  and  two 

[71] 


philosophies  oppose  each  other  in  America,  but, 
as  our  wealth  increases  the  line  of  cleavage  con- 
stantly shifts,  and  more  pleasures  are  considered 
permissible  and  even  estimable.  People  who  have 
always  abjured  the  theatre  now  make  exceptions 
in  favor  of  Shakespeare,  Barrie,  and  Lew  Wal- 
lace; others  who  formerly  insisted  upon  a  strict 
Sabbath  observance  now  lose  zeal  as  social  con- 
ditions change.  The  two  extremes  persist.  We 
still  have  millions  addicted  to  a  morose  godliness, 
and  taking  pleasure  in  hating  pleasure.  Our  glit- 
tering watering-places,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
studded  with  plethoric,  middle-aging  pleasure- 
seekers,  with  lolling,  gilded  youngsters,  with  over- 
jeweled,  over-strained,  greedy  young  women — 
hedonists  all.  Between  these  extremes,  however, 
are  millions  of  serious,  tolerant,  pleasure-loving, 
hard-working  men  and  women,  who  live  more 
liberally  and  more  largely  than  did  their  parents, 
and  yet  "draw  the  line"  at  vicious  or  merely  fool- 
ish forms  of  extravagance. 

Whether  we  use  our  new  wealth  wisely  or  un- 
wisely, however,  there  are  many  who  believe  that 
its  mere  increase  will  intensify  our  proverbial 
American  materialism.  For  many  decades  we 
have  been  upbraided  for  our  flaunting  of  gold, 
for  our  naked  worship  of  wealth,  for  our  applying 
merely  pecuniary  standards  to  the  highest  and  the 
best.  Concerning  our  materialistic  check-book 
vandals,  the  late  Henry  D.  Lloyd  wrote  with 
burning  indignation:  "Of  gods,  friends,  learn- 
ings, of  the  uncomprehended  civilization  which 

[72] 


they  overrun,  they  ask  but  one  question:  How 
much?  What  is  a  good  time  to  sell?  What  is 
a  good  time  to  buy?  ....  Their  heathen  eyes 
see  in  the  law  and  its  consecrated  officers  nothing 
but  an  intelligence-office,  and  hired  men  to  help 
them  burglarize  the  treasures  accumulated  for 
a  thousand  years  at  the  altars  of  liberty  and  jus- 
tice, that  they  may  burn  their  marble  for  the  lime 
of  commerce." 

It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  America  really 
grows  more  materialistic  as  it  grows  wealthier. 
Are  rich  nations  more  mercenary  than  poor?  Do 
peoples  strive  harder  for  what  they  have  than 
for  what  they  lack?  Are  we  more  materialistic 
than  French,  Italians,  or  Swiss,  or  more  openly 
and  crassly  materialistic  than  were  the  Americans 
of  Grant's  day  or  Washington's?  Ours  is  still 
"The  Land  of  Dollars,"  but  surely  our  present 
materialism  is  at  least  somewhat  tempered  by 
idealism.  Here  and  there  in  our  American  life 
we  encounter  an  idealism,  linked  seemingly  with 
our  wealth,  practical,  business-like,  but  sincere, 
almost  sentimental,  almost  romantic. 

A  curious  illustration  of  a  certain  over-moneyed 
idealism  is  found  in  the  benefactions  of  some  of 
our  very  wealthy  men.  In  America,  where  class 
sentiment  is  weak  and  men  have  no  peerage  to 
which  to  aspire,  and  no  well-defined  leisure-class 
opinion  to  which  to  appeal,  even  the  wealthiest 
are  not  entirely  above  the  common  judgment  of 
the  nation,  nor  beyond  the  need  of  the  approval 
of  their  fellow-citizens.  We  consequently  find 

[73] 


that  multimillionaires,  who  have  acquired  their 
wealth  legally  and  illegally,  morally  and  immor- 
ally, make  wise  donations  to  hospitals,  libraries, 
research  laboratories,  art-museums,  and  other 
works  of  social  progress.  These  benefactions 
have  their  evil  as  well  as  their  good  side,  but  no 
fair  man  can  doubt  their  impulse.  A  little  vain- 
glory, a  little  ostentation  in  competitive  benevo- 
lence, weighs  but  lightly  against  the  real  sense  of 
social  obligation  which  these  gifts  reveal. 

These  benefactions  are  significant.  They  show 
vividly  the  effect  of  an  enlightening  public  opinion 
working  on  the  wealthy  as  upon  the  rest  of  us. 
The  merely  vacuous  spender  we  have  always  with 
us,  but  to-day  a  "monkey  dinner"  or  a  similar 
grotesquerie  is  hardly  "good  for"  a  newspaper 
head-line,  while  the,  doings  of  the  Rockefeller  In- 
stitute are  of  perennial  popular  interest. 

Even  more  important  is  the  light  which  these 
gifts  throw  upon  the  nature  of  our  vast  private 
accumulations.  To-day  acquisition  by  our  very 
wealthy  has  outstripped  enjoyment;  it  has  be- 
come, for  them,  easier  to  get  than  to  spend.  En- 
joyment, like  property,  becomes  attenuated,  sec- 
ondary, vicarious.  There  is  more  actual  pleasure 
in  giving  away  a  library  (which  in  a  rather  real 
sense  you  still  own)  than  in  keeping  bonds  and 
stocks  (of  a  railroad  you  have  never  seen)  in  a 
safety  vault  into  which  you  cannot  enter  except 
with  the  consent  of  a  stolid,  gray-coated  guar- 
dian. The  man  who  owns  a  thousand-acre  farm 
may  know  every  tree,  rock,  rail  fence.  In  what 

[74] 


sense,  however,  has  a  man  ownership  in  a  share 
of  an  option  to  subscribe  to  a  certain  stock  at  a 
certain  price?  In  what  sense  does  any  man  own 
ten  millions  of  dollars?  It  is  this  mocking  contra- 
diction, inherent  in  the  possession  of  unimaginable 
resources  by  a  single  finite,  petty  biped  out  of 
which  our  gigantic  and  increasing  donations  arise. 

It  is  not,  however,  by  donations  and  benefac- 
tions, munificent  as  these  may  be,  that  the  great 
new  wealth  of  America  can  be  applied  so  as  to 
bring  to  the  nation  the  maximum  of  advantage 
and  the  minimum  of  harm.  The  final  influence 
of  American  wealth  upon  American  ,  character4 
must  depend  upon  its  distribution.  Our  wealth 
has  not  exerted  the  smallest  fraction  of  its  pos- 
sible beneficient  effect.  The  fruitful  waters  have 
not  evenly  submerged  us,  but  have  come  unequally, 
disproportionately,  a  flood  here,  a  drought  there, 
insecure  and  dangerous.  We  have  paid  too  scant 
attention  to  the  channels  through  which  this  vast 
wealth  flows,  and  are  only  now  learning,  to  our 
cost,  that  wealth  which  spurts  and  gushes  and 
trickles  uncertainly,  a  torrent  here,  a  trickling, 
dying  stream  there,  may  do  damage  as  well  as 
good. 

Today  opposing  tendencies  reveal  themselves 
in  the  concentration  and  in  the  diffusion  of  this 
national  wealth.  We  have  intangible,  elusive  for- 
tunes, with  the  fluidity  of  quicksilver,  daily,  stu- 
pendously growing.  We  see  dismaying  contrasts 
between  men  who  have  more  than  they  need,  and 
men  who  need  more  than  they  have;  between 

[75] 


multimillionaires,  bewildered  by  the  magnitude  of 
their  possessions,  and  abject  wretches  brutalized 
by  want.  And  yet  these  spectacular  contrasts  tell 
only  part  of  the  story.  Simultaneously  there 
occurs  a  slow  but  immense  diffusion  of  our  na- 
tional wealth. 

To  prove  this  diffusion  we  might  pile  up  statis- 
tics concerning  the  rise  in  American  wages,  the 
increase  in  savings-banks  deposits,  the  extension 
of  life  insurance,  the  increase  in  quantity  and 
improvement  in  quality  of  goods  consumed  by  the 
masses  of  the  people,  the  rapidly  growing  num- 
ber of  stockholders  in  great  American  corpora- 
tions. For  all  this,  however,  we  have  not  the 
space.  One  fact  will  show  the  tendency:  in  the 
decade  ending  1910  the  value  of  our  six  million 
farms  increased  twenty  billions  (twenty  thousand 
millions)  of  dollars.  Some  twenty  million  people 
found  their  property  worth  twenty  billion  dollars 
more  in  1910  than  in  1900. 

It  is  not  wholly  a  favorable  development — 
this  increase  in  the  value  of  farm  property.  It 
simultaneously  means  a  higher  cost  of  living  and 
a  greater  difficulty  in  securing  a  farm.  But  merely 
as  a  deflection  of  wealth,  a  deflection  of  twenty 
billions  of  dollars,  this  development  is  highly  sig- 
nificant. It  means  an  unparalleled  sprinkling 
from  a  vast  reservoir.  An  ever-larger  section  of 
the  people  is  emerging  from  former  poverty,  is 
getting  into  a  position  where  life  may  be  faced 
from  the  vantage-ground  of  a  high  wage  or  of 
a  small  property.  This  diffusion  means  a  far 

[76] 


higher  standard  of  comfort  in  country  as  in  city, 
among  well-to-do,  comfortable,  and  moderately 
poor  people.  It  means  a  lessening  death-rate. 
It  means  that  babies  can  be  more  carefully  treated 
by  physicians  and  nurses,  and  can  be  assured  of 
a  better  diet.  It  means  that  the  children  of 
America  may  be  better  fed,  better  clad,  better 
housed,  better  amused,  better  educated  than  be- 
fore. The  new  wealth,  to  the  extent  of  its  dif- 
fusion and  to  the  extent  of  its  social  utilization, 
means  a  better  school  attendance  at  better  schools, 
an  enormous  increase  in  secondary  education,  a 
far  wider  spread  and  democratization  of  univer- 
sity education. 

Even  our  inequality  in  wealth,  enormous  and 
incomprehensible  though  it  is,  does  not  deflect 
all  advantages  from  the  masses.  Our  income  is 
far  less  unequally  divided,  and  the  use  of  wealth 
is  more  general  than  its  possession.  The  rents 
of  the  great  city  landowner  are  paid  to  him;  his 
houses  are  used  by  the  people.  Directly  or  in- 
directly, modern  wealth  goes  largely  to  supply 
the  needs,  improve  the  position,  and  increase  the 
power  of  the  great  mass  of  the  population. 

If  America  were  to  go  into  the  hands  of  a 
receiver,  if  our  total  assets  were  to  be  taken  over 
by  one  single  intelligence,  interested  uniquely  in 
making  the  best  use  of  our  hundred  and  eighty- 
seven  billions  of  wealth,  we  should  doubtless  find, 
after  a  few  decades  of  such  stewardship,  that 
America  had  changed  and  American  characteris- 
tics, qualities,  and  aspects  had  changed  equally. 

[77] 


Our  vast  new  wealth,  wisely  applied,  would  mean 
the  passing  of  illiteracy,  the  abolition  of  patho- 
logical child  labor,  the  careful  preparation  of  our 
entire  population  for  all  the  difficult  requirements 
of  modern  life.  It  would  mean  the  end  of  low 
wages,  of  dangerous  and  unsanitary  factories,  of 
excessive  or  deleterious  toil,  of  unemployment,  of 
under-employment,  of  industrial  uncertainty,  and 
that  long  train  of  vices  which  follow  casual  labor. 
It  would  mean  the  end  of  evil  housing  conditions; 
the  building  of  new  and  healthful,  if  not  always 
beautiful,  suburbs;  a  bold  and  successful  cam- 
paign against  typhoid,  tuberculosis,  and  other 
plagues;  a  diminution  of  city  mortality,  an  in- 
crease in  the  amount  and  a  betterment  of  the 
quality  of  life.  It  would  mean  improved  recrea- 
tion, enlarged  pleasure,  a  diminution  of  drunken- 
ness and  disease,  and  an  escape  from  that  haunt- 
ing fear  of  poverty  which  so  accentuates  the  gam- 
bling element  in  our  civilization.  It  would  lessen 
that  ruthlessness,  recklessness,  and  cynical  egotism 
with  which  our  present-day  wealth  is  so  intimately 
associated. 

In  the  absence  of  such  an  omnipotent  social 
intelligence,  we  must  rely  upon  faultier  instru- 
ments to  secure  a  larger  social  dividend  from  our 
increasing  wealth  and  our  increasing  economic 
power.  It  is  not  a  question  of  long  division, 
for  a  twenty-millionth  part  of  one  hundred  and 
eighty-seven  billion  dollars  would  not  satisfy  us, 
and  much  of  the  wealth  would  disappear  in  the 
very  process  of  division.  What  is  required  is  a 


far  more  difficult  operation :  a  change  in  our  atti- 
tude toward  society,  a  responsibility  on  the  part 
of  each  for  the  wealth  that  each  possesses,  a  re- 
sponsibility on  the  part  of  all  for  the  social  and 
equitable  distribution  of  the  new  wealth  as  it 
pours  out  unceasingly.  The  prevention  of  sense- 
less and  socially  perilous  differences  is  a  part  of 
the  adjustment  which  we  must  make.  Our  hope 
lies  in  a  social  reorganization  which  will  make 
both  opulence  and  poverty  impossible,  which  will 
increasingly  apply  the  wealth  of  society  to  the 
common  needs  of  society.  It  is  a  realization  press- 
ing hard  on  the  nations  of  to-day,  and  especially 
upon  America. 

One  might  believe  that  this  hope  of  a  better, 
abler,  and  happier  nation  resting  upon  the  broad 
pedestal  of  national  resources  and  national  wealth 
was  an  ideal  bounded  by  the  sharp  limitations  of 
our  existing  wealth.  After  all,  one  or  two  hun- 
dred billions  of  dollars  is  not  very  much.  Our 
proper  adjustment  to  our  present  wealth,  how- 
ever, is  but  the  beginning  of  the  true  getting  of 
wealth.  A  better  distribution  and  a  better  utili- 
zation of  our  present  wealth  would  mean  an  in- 
crease in  the  intelligence  and  capacity  of  the 
people  who  acquire  wealth,  than  which  no  better 
investment  could  be  made.  Measured  by  the  men 
of  the  coming  generations,  we  are  to-day  singu- 
larly unproductive.  We  are  still  pitifully  igno- 
rant of  natural  science,  pitifully  ignorant  of 
social  science.  About  us  are  powerful,  silent 
genii,  unreined  natural  forces,  which  will 

[79] 


rear  our  civilization  once  we  call  them — and  we 
do  not  even  know  their  names.  We  live  in  a 
veritable  welter  of  social  waste,  and  exist  upon 
the  mere  scanty  fragments  of  a  booty  torn  to 
pieces  by  contending  claimants — and  we  know  not 
how  to  allay  the  strife.  We  are  only  slowly — 
very  slowly — learning. 

As  we  look  forward,  we  are  overcome  with 
the  sheer  magnitude  of  our  probable  future  wealth 
and  with  our  uncomprehended  responsibility  for 
its  use.  What  we  now  have  is  but  an  earnest  of 
the  incomparably  greater  stores  beyond.  We 
have  not  yet  begun  to  exploit  the  resources  of 
our  continent.  We  have  not  begun  to  learn  from 
science  the  magic  which  will  open  the  earth  to 
our  needs.  We  have  hardly  approached  the 
study  of  those  great  problems  of  social  reorgani- 
zation and  of  popular  education  which  will  make 
of  these  gifts  of  nature  a  blessing  and  not  a 
curse.  We  are  like  an  ignorant  savage  starving 
in  the  midst  of  fertile  fields ;  like  the  pioneer  Bal- 
boa, wading  timidly  into  an  ocean  upon  which 
great  vessels  are  destined  to  sail. 


[80] 


PROPHET  AND  POLITICIAN 


PROPHET  AND  POLITICIAN 

"Good    thoughts    (though    God    accept    them)    yet    towards 
men  are  little  better  than  good  dreams,  except  they  be  put 

in  act." 

Of  Great   Place  by  Francis  Bacon. 

As  week  after  week  I  watched  with  painful  in- 
terest the  gradual  decline  at  Paris  of  President 
Wilson  and  foresaw  his  impending  fall,  I  thought 
increasingly  of  the  similar  discomfiture  of  that 
autocratic  democrat,  Alexander  the  First  of  Rus- 
sia, at  the  Congress  of  Vienna  and  after.  No 
comparison  or  assimilation  of  the  two  men  can 
be  quite  fair  to  either.  Alexander  was  more  vain, 
more  suspicious,  more  sentimental  than  is  the  Pres- 
ident, and  upon  his  thin  and  grandiose  imagina- 
tion a  schemer  or  fanatic  might  write  his  will. 
Mr.  Wilson's  mind  is  clearer  and  his  will  firmer. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Tsar's  democratic  prin- 
ciples, acquired  in  his  youth,  were  more  robust 
than  is  Mr.  Wilson's  liberalism,  which  is  a  slim- 
mer accumulation  of  middle  age.  Like  Mr. 
Wilson,  Alexander  represented  the  least  spent  and 
most  influential  nation  at  the  Congress,  but  living 
in  the  infancy  of  democratic  government  he  had 
no  strong  group  sentiment  to  which  to  appeal. 
Moreover,  he  was  beset  by  shrewder  opponents 
than  was  Mr.  Wilson,  for  there  was  no  Castle- 

[83] 


reagh  at  Paris  and  no  Talleyrand  or  Metternich. 
Like  the  President,  however,  the  Tsar  surren- 
dered point  by  point,  not  knowing  that  he  surren- 
dered, and  in  the  end  proved  as  false  to  the  teach- 
ings of  La  Harpe  as  Mr.  Wilson  to  the  mandate 
of  the  world's  liberals.  Striving  for  a  virtuous 
and  pious  Europe  at  peace,  he  closed  his  career 
by  fastening  upon  his  own  country  and  upon  Eu- 
rope the  most  intolerable  of  reactionary  regimes. 

It  is  easy  to  denounce  the  Tsar  but  it  is  quite 
beyond  the  mark.  After  a  century  we  now  see 
that  he  could  not  have  built  his  imposing  Federa- 
tion of  Europe,  lacking  both  brick  and  straw.  It 
is  equally  futile  to  upbraid  the  President  who,  a 
generation  from  now,  may  be  thought  of  as  a 
straw  dyke  carried  away  by  the  flood,  and  his 
failure  ascribed  to  the  set  of  these  over-powering 
currents  rather  than  to  his  own  weaknesses  and 
obscurities.  But  these  weaknesses  force  upon  us 
nevertheless  a  psychological  and  ethical  problem, 
for  Mr.  Wilson's  failure  was  a  poignant  moral 
failure,  involving  everything  in  the  man  that  held 
our  respect.  I  do  not  seek  to  praise  or  blame  but 
to  understand;  to  measure  the  failure  in  terms  of 
character;  to  gauge  the  man  and  his  method  by 
the  nature  even  more  than  by  the  extent  of  his 
failure. 

It  was  not  hypocrisy  that  caused  Mr.  Wilson 
to  preach  the  gospel  of  simple  honesty  between 
nations  and  then  write  a  new  Brest-Litovsk. 
Nothing  is  further  from  his  record  both  at  home 
and  abroad.  Nor  did  he  have  any  ulterior  pur- 


pose  or  unworthy  intention.  The  failings,  to 
which  his  defeat  was  due,  were  on  a  different 
plane.  He  was,  as  we  shall  later  see,  over-confi- 
dent— too  sure  of  his  ability  to  match  his  mind 
against  the  best  minds  of  Europe.  He  was  ill 
prepared  and  ill  informed.  He  grew  confused 
and  lost  his  perception  of  what  could,  and  what 
could  not,  be  done.  He  was  stubborn  when  he 
should  have  been  open-minded,  vacillating  when 
he  should  have  been  decided.  These  are  not  in- 
tentional, nor  indeed  grave  sins,  but  rather  the 
errors  of  a  man  who  has  stumbled  into  a  false 
position.  Indeed  from  the  first  he  had  grossly 
misconceived  his  mission  in  Europe.  He  had 
thought  of  himself  as  the  censor  of  a  treaty  to 
be  presented  to  him,  as  the  detached  judge.  That 
treaty  he  had  conceived,  moreover,  as  a  necessary 
deduction  from  an  agreed-on  set  of  principles,  like 
the  conclusions  of  the  geometer  which  grew  logi- 
cally out  of  simple  axioms.  Mr.  Wilson  went  to 
Paris  like  some  medieval  Doctor  of  Theology, 
with  his  theses  written  down  on  stiff  parchment, 
ready  to  meet  the  other  good  doctors  in  fair 
and  leisurely  argument.  Instead  of  Doctors  of 
Divinity  it  was  hand-to-mouth  diplomats  whom  he 
met — men  no  worse  than  their  calling — who 
greeted  him  kindly  and  then  reverently  laid  his 
neat  theses  on  the  table  under  the  map  of  Eu- 
rope which  was  being  sliced  up.  These  diplo- 
mats, though  smaller,  were  cleverer  than  the 
President,  and  they  were  playing  their  own  game 
with  their  own  cards.  In  this  candle-light  game 

[85] 


Mr.  Wilson  had  as  much  real  chance  as  poor 
Moses  Primrose  with  the  reverend-looking  man 
in  the  tent.  Mr.  Wilson  left  for  Paris  with  the 
best  wares  ever  brought  to  market,  with  eco- 
nomic power,  military  power  and  the  prestige  of 
disinterestedness;  he  comes  back  with  empty 
pockets  and  a  gross  of  green  spectacles. 

That  sounds  as  though  he  were  a  dupe,  but  the 
word  is  too  strong.  He  himself  at  rare  intervals 
saw  the  drift  of  events  and  perhaps  foresaw  his 
own  discomfiture,  and  no  doubt  bitterly  repented 
his  initial  errors,  made  on  his  sole  responsibility, 
which  were  leading  him  to  decisions  he  abhorred. 
In  his  over-confidence  he  had  bound,  gagged  and 
delivered  himself.  He  had  agreed  to  secret  cov- 
enants of  peace  because  that  was  the  convenient 
as  well  as  the  orthodox  mode  of  diplomacy,  and 
had  given  up  his  chief  weapon — the  appeal  over 
the  heads  of  diplomatists  to  the  world.  Perhaps 
he  did  not  quite  realize  the  nature  of  the  envi- 
ronment he  was  thus  creating  nor  its  inevitable 
effect  upon  himself.  Around  that  cynical  table, 
where  the  treaty  was  patched  together  bit  by  bit, 
his  Fourteen  Points,  which  had  aroused  nations 
to  enthusiasm,  must  have  seemed  pale  and  unreal, 
and  I  imagine  that  Mr.  Wilson,  sitting  there 
alone,  was  a  little  ashamed,  as  Isaac  Newton 
might  have  been  had  he  written  a  popular  ballad. 
Idealism  was  hardly  "good  form"  in  that  intimate 
group  of  four. 

To  his  apparent  surprise,  moreover,  he  discov- 
ered that  his  own  "points"  could  be  turned 
[86] 


against  their  inventor.  The  Italians,  though  de- 
manding the  letter  of  their  greedy  pact  with  the 
Allies,  also  demanded,  in  set  Wilsonian  phrase, 
fuli  Self-Determination  for  the  people  of  Fiume. 
The  imperialists  learned  to  quote  the  new  Scrip- 
ture to  their  purpose.  But  did  Mr.  Wilson  not 
foresee  this?  Did  he  believe  that  principles  in- 
terpreted and  enforced  themselves?  His  courte- 
ous opponents  understood  the  importance  of  in- 
terpretation. Let  anyone  lay  down  the  principles 
— Mr.  Wilson,  the  President  of  Liberia,  or  even 
the  Kaiser — if  only  they  might  apply  them. 

This  simple  faith  of  Mr.  Wilson  in  his  Four- 
teen Points,  unexplained  and  unelaborated,  was 
due,  I  believe,  to  the  invincible  abstractedness  of 
his  mind.  He  seems  to  see  the  world  in  abstrac- 
tions. To  him  railroad  cars  are  not  railroad  cars 
but  a  gray,  general  thing  called  Transportation; 
people  are  not  men  and  women,  corporeal,  gross, 
very  human  beings,  but  Humanity — Humanity 
very  much  in  the  abstract.  In  his  political  think- 
ing and  propaganda  Mr.  Wilson  cuts  away  all 
the  complex  qualities  which  things  possess  in  real 
life  in  order  to  fasten  upon  one  single  character- 
istic, and  thus  he  creates  a  clear  but  over-simple 
and  unreal  formula.  As  a  consequence  he  is 
tempted  to  fall  into  inelastic  categories;  to  sec 
things  black  and  white;  to  believe  that  similar 
things  are  identical  and  dissimilar  things  opposite. 
Mexicans  seem  to  him  to  be  Anglo-Saxons  living 
in  Mexico  and  Frenchmen,  Italians  and  Russians 
Anglo-Saxons  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  His 


thinking  rarely  concerns  itself  with  concrete  dif- 
ferences; it  is  never  a  quantitative  thinking;  it  is 
never  inductive.     And  this  abstractness  of  Mr. 
Wilson  is  part  of  a  curiously  a  priori  metaphysical 
idealism.     His  world  stands  firmly  on  its  head. 
Ideas  do  not  rest  upon  facts  but  facts  on  ideas. 
Morals  and  laws  are  not  created  out  of  the  rub 
and  wear  of  men  and  societies  but  are  things  in- 
nate, uncreated,  immutable,  absolute  and  simple; 
and  human  relations  arise  out  of  them.     ''In  the 
Beginning  was  the  Word :  and  the  Word  was  with 
God:  and  the  Word  was  God."     The  Keeper  of 
the  Word,  the  Utterer  of  the  Word  is  the  man 
who  creates.     If  Mr.  Wilson  could  proclaim  the 
Eternal  Verities — the  Ten  Commandments  of  In- 
ternational Life — lesser  minds  might  be  entrusted 
with  the  humbler  work  of  exegesis.    His  Fourteen 
Points  would,  by  the  mere  fact  of  their  expression, 
work  themselves  into  the  body  of  international 
life  and  re-create  it  in  their  image. 

I  do  not  presume  to  belittle  this  philosophy  nor 
to  deny  to  it  all  validity.  Undoubtedly  the  im- 
pressive, half-true  generalizations  of  our  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  did  contribute  to  a  change 
in  political  thought  and  conditions.  Between  the 
Declaration  and  the  Fourteen  Points,  however, 
lay  a  deep  gulf.  The  first  was  an  appeal,  and 
what  it  lacked  in  precision  it  gained  in  eloquence. 
The  Fourteen  Points,  on  the  contrary,  were  con- 
ceived as  the  basis  of  an  organic  constitution  of 
the  world,  and  as  such  should  have  been  exactly 
determined  and  made  to  conform  with  each  other 
[88] 


and  with  the  specific  needs  of  the  nations.  I  fear, 
however,  that  Mr.  Wilson  never  understood  his 
"points"  in  detail,  either  their  extent  or  their  mu- 
tual limitations.  Was  his  idea  of  "the  freedom 
of  the  seas"  consonant  with  his  League  of  Na- 
tions? Should  self-determination  have  the  right 
of  way  when  an  alien  Hinterland  clamored  for 
access  to  the  sea?  You  can  not  lay  down  fourteen 
general  formulas  without  raising  innumerable 
questions  in  political  casuistry,  important  ques- 
tions which  must  be  answered.  Mr.  Wilson  ap- 
parently did  not  see  that  his  Fourteen  Points 
were  not  an  explicit  programme  but  were  some- 
thing less  and  infinitely  more — a  splendid  but 
vague  summary  of  decades  of  thought — not  of 
Mr.  Wilson's  thought  but  of  the  thought  of  the 
world,  derived  from  the  long  perceived  needs  of 
millions  of  ordinary  men  and  women.  Having 
restated  his  philosophy  Mr.  Wilson  refrained 
from  taking  the  next  step  of  working  out  a  plan 
of  action.  He  went  into  the  jungle  with  a  map 
of  the  world  but  without  a  compass. 

Because  of  this  abstractness,  because  of  his  em- 
phasis upon  generalization  and  his  neglect  of  the 
concrete  facts  and  particular  instances  upon  which 
the  generalization  should  have  been  based,  Mr. 
Wilson  sat  down  at  the  Peace  table  knowing  noth- 
ing of  the  things  he  should  have  known.  He  knew 
nothing  of  Shantung,  Fiume,  Dalmatia,  Silesia, 
Macedonia,  and  cared  little  about  them  so  long 
as  his  principle  of  self-determination  prevailed. 
He  knew  nothing  of  the  complex  economic  in- 


terrelations,  friendly  and  hostile,  between  various 
European  nations,  for  he  trusted  to  his  not  very 
clearly  defined  principle  concerning  "economic  bar- 
riers." He  did  not  even  want  to  know  these 
"details." 

Had  the  President  rightly  conceived  what  min- 
ute special  knowledge  and  what  practical  realistic 
judgment  it  required  to  write  the  Fourteen  Points 
into  the  treaty,  he  would  have  selected  his  Peace 
colleagues  from  the  best  informed  and  most  re- 
sponsible and  independent  thinkers  in  the  United 
States.  He  would  also  have  provided  himself 
with  a  group  of  experts  with  whom  he  himself 
would  have  been  in  daily  communication  and  at 
whose  feet  he  would  have  sat.  Instead  he  em- 
ployed a  body  of  special  students,  most  of  them 
capable  and  all  conscientious,  but  a  body  apart, 
without  instructions,  without  authority,  without 
real  contact  with  the  President,  disconnected.  The 
expert  who  studied  Kiaochow  was  not  supposed 
to  know  what  the  President  thought,  though  what 
the  President  thought  on  the  morning  of  the  day 
of  decision  was  the  decisive  thing.  Mr.  Wilson's 
theory  was  that  all  determinations  must  be  his 
and  all  must  be  based  if  not  upon  direct  inspira- 
tion then  upon  evidence  sifted  by  him.  But  he 
completely  failed  to  perceive  the  magnitude  of 
such  a  task.  No  mind,  however  capacious,  could 
possibly  have  grasped  all  these  intricacies,  and 
where  the  greatest  man  would  have  failed  Mr. 
Wilson  failed.  He  was  ignorant  by  reason  of 
his  chosen  method  of  work,  his  love  of  political 

[90] 


abstraction,  his  distaste  for  concrete,  complex,  co- 
ordinated research,  by  reason  finally  of  his  vol- 
untary intellectual  isolation.  Working  alone  he 
worked  too  slowly  and  never  finished  anything. 
No  wonder  he  was  swamped  by  the  impossible 
and  uncongenial  task. 

That  task,  even  after  weeks  and  months  of 
work  on  it,  Mr.  Wilson  never  really  understood. 
He  saw  vaguely  that  the  treaty  was  turning  out 
badly  but  he  did  not  quite  see  what  was  the  mat- 
ter. The  problem  still  presented  itself  to  him 
in  abstract  moral  terms;  certain  people  were  bad 
and  the  proposals  put  forth  by  bad  people  were 
bad  proposals.  $ince  his  Fourteen  Principles 
were  skillfully  opposed  to  each  other  until  at  last 
Mr.  Wilson  himself  could  not  choose  between 
them,  he  fell  back  in  his  decisions  upon  a  transient 
sympathy.  He  liked  certain  people,  among  them 
Lloyd  George,  a  ready-witted,  humorous,  easy- 
principled  politician,  one  of  those  "cunning"  men, 
of  whom  Bacon  says,  that  they  are  "perfect  in 
men's  humours"  but  "not  greatly  capable  of  the 
real  part  of  business."  Clemenceau,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  seems  to  have  distrusted,  and  as  a  con- 
sequence the  French  imperialists  seemed — as  in- 
deed they  were — insatiable.  The  Italian  impe- 
rialists also  wanted  all  they  could  get  and  knew 
no  other  way  than  to  ask  for  more  than  they 
could  get.  To  Mr.  Wilson's  friendly  eye  the 
British,  on  the  other  hand,  appeared  moderate, 
and  were,  so  it  seemed,  forced  against  their  will 
to  accept  what  they  wanted.  But,  unfortunately 

[90 


for  Mr.  Wilson's  constancy,  the  whole  Confer- 
ence whirled  about  like  a  top,  diplomats  changed 
roles,  and  allies  became  opponents  and  opponents 
allies.  There  were  times  when  Mr.  Wilson  could 
not  determine  the  relative  morality  of  his  col- 
leagues, but,  like  Alice  judging  the  Walrus  and 
the  Carpenter,  was  forced  to  the  lame  conclusion 
that  "they  were  both  very  disagreeable  charac- 
ters." And,  in  truth,  beneath  all  apparent  con- 
cessions to  Mr.  Wilson  and  behind  all  temporary 
alignments  in  his  favor  there  existed  at  Paris  and 
had  existed  from  the  beginning,  despite  intense 
mutual  bitterness  among  these  Powers,  a  hostile 
bloc  of  four  nations,  held  together  by  secret  trea- 
ties, which  though  uncomfortable  were  binding. 
The  British  admitted  that  these  treaties,  notably 
with  Italy  and  Japan,  were  immoral  but  would 
it  not  be  still  more  immoral  to  break  them  ?  The 
President,  realizing  that  his  dwindling  programme 
was  in  danger  of  total  extinction,  was  willing  to 
grant  plenary  absolution  to  any  penitent  Power 
abjuring  its  arrangements.  But  the  European 
governments,  as  well  as  Japan,  wanted  no  abso- 
lution; they  wanted  colonies,  money,  economic 
privileges.  They  wanted  a  good,  hard,  bristling 
peace,  a  blockade-and-bayonet  peace,  a  sinister 
peace  with  just  enough  sentimental  coating  to  get 
it  down.  We  were  to  provide  the  coating.  And 
in  the  end  it  was  just  such  a  peace  that  they  in- 
duced Woodrow  Wilson  to  accept. 

It  is  claimed  in  the  President's  defense  that 
no  man  could  have  broken  through  this  ring  of 

[92] 


treaty  -bound  nations.  But  as  early  as  June,  1917, 
Mr.  Wilson  knew  of  these  secret  treaties.  Why 
did  he  not  then,  when  conditions  were  favorable 
to  us,  insist  upon  a  revision  of  Allied  terms? 

I  believe  that  this  fatal  omission  of  the  Presi- 
dent was  due  in  some  part  to  his  habit  of  ignor- 
ing disagreeable  realities.  It  would  have  been 
unpleasant  even  to  know  about  these  treaties.  At 
bottom,  however,  the  cause  of  his  inaction  lay 
in  his  ingrained  habits  of  thought.  Mr.  Wilson 
placed  his  faith  then  as  now  not  in  actual,  prac- 
tical adjustments  of  aims,  in  a  deed,  but  in  his 
own  exalted  words.  In  due  course  he  would 
speak  out  boldly  and  at  his  word  the  strong  wall 
of  dishonest  diplomacy  would  fall  down. 

Does  so  deep  a  self-confidence  suggest  the  vic- 
torious dream-world  of  fantasy  rather  than  the 
world  of  reality?  Does  it  suggest  a  man  ener- 
vated by  the  secret  vice  of  self-worship? 

Here  we  are  treading  upon  the  most  private 
of  preserves  because  most  men  believe  that  they 
are  modest — at  least  in  proportion  to  their  jus- 
tification for  vanity — and  all  of  us  live  in  glass 
houses.  We  cannot,  however,  intelligently  discuss 
the  President's  failure  at  Paris  without  consider- 
ing this  quality  which  contributed  to  his  fall.  Dur- 
ing long  years  a  man  may  safely  indulge  a  small 
vice  which  in  his  critical  hour  proves  his  undoing. 
It  is,  moreover,  one  of  the  ironies  of  life  that 
achievement  often  brings  with  it  false  rewards 
that  make  further  achievement  impossible.  Mr. 
Wilson's  past  success,  his  high  station,  his  long 

[93] 


continued  greatness  were  not  unlikely  to  give  him 
a  somewhat  distorted  sense  of  his  relation  towards 
his  fellow-men.  For  almost  twenty  years,  at 
Princeton,  Trenton  and  Washington,  Mr.  Wilson, 
though  fighting,  had  represented  Authority.  He 
could  remove  men  who  were  hostile  or  remove 
himself  from  their  influence.  He  could  choose 
his  associates.  But  the  great  man  who  indulges 
in  the  luxury  of  choosing  his  associates  can  hardly 
escape  excessive  adulation,  a  sugary  poison  far 
more  virulent  to  an  urbane,  cultivated  and  sensi- 
tive mind  than  to  a  loose-lipped  braggart,  just 
as  secret  drinking  is  more  dangerous  than  swill- 
ing in  public.  No  man  in  this  century  has  read 
as  many  million  words  of  praise  as  Mr.  Wilson. 
It  is  no  disgrace  that  he  is  not  an  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, who  grew  in  humility  as  he  grew  in  power, 
and  accepted  praise  and  blame  at  their  just  worth, 
gratefully  yet  critically.  In  Paris  as  in  Rome  the 
President  was  again  placed  upon  a  diet  of  adula- 
tion, but  there  it  was  a  weapon  not  an  ointment, 
and  compliments  did  not  mean  concessions.  For 
the  first  time  in  twenty  years,  moreover,  Mr. 
Wilson  was  forced  to  meet  opponents  on  equal 
terms.  He  could  not  depose  M.  Clemenceau  or 
Signer  Orlando  or  Baron  Makino.  He  could  not 
force  them  to  acquiesce.  Further,  he  no  longer 
had  the  necessities  of  the  Allies  as  his  ally.  Day 
by  day  the  expectant  gratitude  of  Italy,  France, 
Japan  and  Great  Britain  to  America  grew  cooler 
and  their  thanks  even  took  on  the  color  of  a 
reproach  that  we  had  been  late  in  coming  into  the 

[94] 


war  and  had  not  fared  badly.  Here  was  oppo- 
sition not  less  real  because  flattering  and  evasive, 
an  opposition  based  on  the  principle  of  the  "elas- 
tic defense,"  always  retreating  but  never  giving 
ground.  In  the  end  it  was  Mr.  Wilson  who  gave 
ground,  who  retreated  while  thinking  he  ad- 
vanced, who  presented  the  case  of  his  opponents, 
being  flattered  into  believing  that  it  was  his  own 
case,  invented  by  himself.  It  is  significant  of 
the  truly  diplomatic  policy  of  Mr.  Wilson's  an- 
tagonists that  he  got  the  publicity  and  they  got 
the  treaty. 

At  last  in  these  painfully  delayed  negotiations 
a  day  came  when  he  would  retreat  no  further. 
On  Sunday,  April  the  sixth,  he  publicly  announced 
that  he  had  cabled  for  the  George  Washington. 
A  thrill  of  intense  excitement  ran  through  Paris; 
friends  and  enemies  of  the  President  asked  "What 
will  he  do?"  To  his  friends  the  President  re- 
vealed his  intentions.  He  had  compromised  too 
much;  heiOifter  He  would  take  his  stand  on  the 
Fourteen  Points.  These  friends  described  to  me 
the  President  as  marvelously  cami,  with  set  jaws 
and  "no  bend  in  him  anywhere."  I  went  to  bed 
that  night  hoping  that  at  last  the  President  would 
stand  firm — there  in  the  centre  of  the  world. 
He  did  not  stand  firm.  He  wavered,  accepted 
small  compromises,  gave  in  more  than  before. 
The  European  correspondents  smiled  ironically. 
Doubtless  they  thought  of  Bismarck's  cruel  char- 
acterization of  Salisbury:  "A  lath  painted  to 
look  like  iron." 

[95] 


It  was  not  cowardice ;  had  the  President  known 
at  that  late  day,  after  innumerable  concessions 
and  self-betrayals,  how  to  bring  the  vital  matter 
of  internationalism  to  a  clear  issue  he  would,  I 
feel  confident,  have  risked  all  and  stood  up  against 
the  world.  He  had,  however,  already  surren- 
dered too  much;  he  was  bound  by  as  many  slight 
threads  as  Gulliver  in  Lilliput.  He  could  not  now 
strain  at  a  gnat  or  even  a  camel  after  having 
swallowed  a  whole  menagerie.  He  might  save 
his  face  by  making  a  final  stand  on  the  question 
of  Fiume  but  the  Italians  would  prove  that  he 
himself  had  already  countenanced  much  harsher 
violations  of  his  own  principles.  All  he  could 
gain  was  a  spectacular  tactical  success;  the  main 
battle  was  already  lost. 

There  was  a  still  more  compelling  reason,  as 
I  take  it,  why  Mr.  Wilson  failed  to  make  this 
heroic  decision.  There  are  three  sorts  of  minds 
in  the  world.  The  first  can  see  only  one  side  of 
every  question;  it  is  the  mind  of  the  very  simple 
man  and  of  the  fanatic.  The  second  sees  both 
sides  but  sees  them  alternately,  never  together. 
The  third,  which  one  may  call  the  synthetic  mind, 
sees  both  (or  all)  sides  and  sees  them  contem- 
poraneously, weighs  them,  balances  them  against 
each  other  and  comes,  perhaps  slowly,  to  a  final, 
firm  judgment.  Mr.  Wilson's  mind  seems  to  be 
of  the  second  order.  Granite-like  though  it 
sometimes  appears — it  is  wax  to  receive  and  wax 
to  retain,  eminently  impressionable  and  unstable. 
It  is  perhaps  because  he  himself  knows  this  that 

[96] 


he  seeks  to  escape  from  the  rude  conflict  with 
other  minds  and  thinks  alone — which  means  to 
think  with  the  people  who  agree  with  what  he 
thought  yesterday.  Again  it  is  this  mind  of  his 
with  its  alternating  current  that  explains  the  amaz- 
ing contradictions  of  his  career,  his  disconcerting 
changes  of  front,  his  infinite  self-reversals.  To 
such  a  mind  his  seemingly  friendly  antagonists 
at  the  Peace  Conference  could  present  an  argu- 
ment of  great  cogency.  To  throw  over  the  peace 
negotiations  now  would  be  to  desert  Europe  and 
to  push  her  down  into  anarchy.  Better  a  small 
sacrifice  of  internationalism,  better  even  the  worst 
peace  with  order  than  utter  disruption,  decades 
of  revolution  and  in  the  end  a  Bolshevik  world. 
This  argument,  we  may  readily  believe,  was  no 
part  of  the  President's  intellectual  equipment 
when  he  left  Washington  in  December.  It  rep- 
resented a  recession  from  his  earlier  thought,  a 
violent  fluctuation.  For  reasons,  not  at  all  occult, 
Mr.  Wilson  was  more  than  usually  liable  at  Paris 
to  such  fluctuations  of  conviction  and  will.  He 
stood  alone.  He  had  no  "unmannerly"  Kent  at 
his  elbow  to  talk  bluntly  to  him  and  no  group  of 
intellectual  equals  with  him,  upon  whose  inde- 
pendent judgment  boldly  given  he  could  try  out 
new  ideas.  Not  only  had  Mr.  Wilson,  with  what 
he  has  called  his  single-track  mind,  to  shunt  prob- 
lems constantly  arriving  on  many  tracks  but  he 
was  forced  to  oppose  his  individual,  impression- 
able mind  to  more  effective,  more  stable  and 
much  less  impressionable  group  minds.  The 

[97] 


English  mind  at  the  Conference  was  a  compact, 
articulated  group  mind,  a  mind  of  a  hundred 
minds,  taking  up  each  other's  slack,  a  mind  elastic, 
comprehensive,  persistent  and  working  harmo- 
niously. It  did  not  waver  like  the  mind  of  an 
individual.  The  French  mind,  also  a  group  mind, 
though  febrile  was  constant  and  unfluctuating. 
The  Japanese  mind  was  concrete,  concentrated 
and  amazingly  firm.  Back  of  each  of  these  group 
minds,  moreover,  was  a  national  will;  back  of 
President  Wilson,  with  his  dummy  colleagues  and 
his  unconsulted  experts,  was  nothing  with  which 
he  was  in  touch,  nothing  from  which  he  knew 
how  to  draw  support.  He  had  no  ballast.  An 
individual  arguing  against  nations,  he  was  sub- 
ject to  the  enormous  pressure  of  national  wills. 
Even  the  American  people  no  longer  knew  what 
Mr.  Wilson  thought,  and  not  knowing  ceased  to 
care.  He  might  therefore  swiftly  change  his 
mind  or  even  pocket  his  whole  philosophy,  without 
America  or  himself  quite  knowing. 

There  was  a  final  reason,  I  suppose,  besides 
his  self-induced  impotence  and  his  too  ready  adop- 
tion of  principles  opposed  to  his  own,  that  made 
Mr.  Wilson  accept  his  aborted  treaty  with  little 
show  of  reluctance.  He  had  his  League.  It  was, 
he  probably  permitted  himself  to  believe,  the  one 
permanent  result  of  the  negotiations,  the  one  cura- 
tive agent.  Let  the  treaty  pass ;  in  time  it  might 
die  of  prenatal  defects.  The  League  would  not 
only  live  but  would  cure  the  treaty  or  create  a 
new  one. 

[98] 


It  was  natural  for  Mr.  Wilson  to  adopt  this 
compensatory  theory  which  seemed  to  convert  his 
defeat  into  a  victory.  His  pride  was  involved. 
Though  he  has  in  fact  contributed  little  to  the 
detailed  elaboration  of  the  League  plan  (and  that 
little  has  not  always  been  good),  still  the  impulse 
was  largely  his,  and  he  is  therefore  properly  asso- 
ciated in  the  public  mind  with  the  League,  which 
is  almost  spoken  of  as  Mr.  Wilson's  League. 
We  are  optimistic  where  our  own  children  are 
concerned  and  Mr.  Wilson  may  well  have  per- 
suaded himself  that  the  League,  though  weak, 
faulty,  and  in  some  respects  reactionary,  was  still 
sound  enough  to  redeem  the  treaty.  The  truth, 
I  fear,  is  the  exact  opposite.  Even  a  poor  League 
would  have  been  better  than  none  had  the  treaty 
been  tolerable.  But  a  vicious  treaty,  making  for 
war  and  anarchy,  must  of  necessity  destroy  the 
League  to  which  it  is  in  principle  opposed.  How 
can  this  League,  based  on  the  doctrine  of  unanim- 
ity, be  much  better  than  the  Peace  Conference 
itself?  How  can  it,  for  example,  undo  the  iniqui- 
tous gift  of  Shantung  to  Japan  when  such  re- 
cession requires  Japan's  own  consent?  I  do  not 
wish  to  prejudge  the  new  Covenant  but  it  is  surely 
a  sign  of  Mr.  Wilson's  far-away  abstractness  and 
of  his  failure  to  grasp  near  realities  that  he  was 
willing  to  bargain  the  treaty  for  the  League,  in- 
stead of  offering  the  League  (and  with  it  Amer- 
ica's moral  and  material  support  to  Europe)  for 
the  only  sort  of  peace  that  we  should  be  willing 
to  maintain.  It  is  even  in  doubt  whether  the 

[99] 


President  looked  very  closely  at  his  League  or 
assured  himself  that  it  was  real  and  not  coun- 
terfeit. 

Thus  comes  to  an  inglorious  end  the  quest  of 
Woodrow  Wilson  in  search  of  a  new  world. 
There  also  comes  to  an  end — for  a  time  at  least — 
the  hopes  of  millions  of  men.  It  is  further  dis- 
heartening that  the  defeat  will  be  ascribed  to  that 
very  political  idealism  which  alone  might  have 
made  a  success  possible.  Those  who  despise  all 
idealism  in  politics  will  exult  over  this  new  Don 
Quixote  overthrown  and  bespattered,  this  new 
saint  seduced.  They  will  wish  to  revert  to  the 
old  time  diplomatist,  the  dollar  and  steel  and  sau- 
sage diplomatist,  who  has  as  few  ideals  as  may 
be  but  has  his  broad  feet  flat  on  the  ground.  They 
will  call  for  an  end  of  prophets  and  idealists. 
In  their  churches  they  are  willing  to  read  Isaiah 
and  Habakkuk  but  they  want  no  latter-day 
prophets  stalking  about  on  week  days. 

This  theory  that  it  was  the  idealism  of  Mr. 
Wilson  that  undid  him,  is,  I  am  convinced,  quite 
false.  The  President  has  at  rare  moments  the 
earnestness,  the  vision  and  the  deep  eloquence  of 
the  Hebrew  prophets,  and  it  is  these  qualities 
which,  if  they  stood  alone,  would  make  him  a 
truly  great  man,  one  of  the  greatest.  But  Wood- 
row  Wilson  is  also  a  politician.  No  one  could 
have  become  President  of  Princeton  or  Governor 
of  New  Jersey  without  knowing  and,  in  some 
sense,  loving  the  currents  and  deceptive  under- 
currents of  what  we  call  political  life.  It  was 
[  100  ] 


not  Woodrow  Wilson,  the  prophet  and  idealist, 
who  was  overturned  at  Paris,  for  whatever  his 
defects,  his  abstractness,  his  metaphysical  ideal- 
ism, his  over-confidence,  his  vanity,  he  might  al- 
ways have  retrieved  himself  and  gained  at  least 
a  moral  victory  by  a  final  refusal.  The  man  who 
was  discomfited  was  Woodrow  Wilson  the  poli- 
tician, the  man  who  thought  he  could  play  the 
European  game,  who  was  not  afraid  of  the  dark, 
who  at  times  seemed  to  bargain  for  his  own  hand, 
for  his  personal  prestige  and  his  political  party, 
instead  of  fighting  always  and  solely,  win  or  lose, 
for  his  ideals.  A  man  can  not  both  be  celestial 
and  subterranean;  he  can  not  at  once  stand  on 
the  mountain  top  and  in  the  cellar.  When  the 
President  of  the  United  States  who  had  stirred 
mankind  as  it  had  not  been  stirred  for  decades 
withdrew  from  the  inspiration  of  the  peoples  of 
the  world  and  agreed  to  a  "give-and-take  peace" 
secretly  arrived  at  by  bargaining — when  Mr.  Wil- 
son surrendered  the  role  of  prophet  and  accepted 
the  lesser  role  of  opportunist  politician — he  be- 
came as  one  of  the  others,  a  little  less  than  the 
others. 


[101] 


IN  THE  KING'S  ROBING  ROOM 


IN  THE  KING'S  ROBING  ROOM 

Sir  Leo  Chiozza  Money — What  particular  service  do  you  per- 
form for  the  community  as  a  coal-owner? 

Witness — (The  Duke  of  Northumberland) — As  an  owner  of 
coal  I  do  not  perform  any  service  for  the  community.  I 
look  after  my  property  to  my  best  advantage.  I  do  not 
know  whether  you  call  that  service. 

Sir  Leo — The  personal  service  you  perform  is  very  slight. 
Minutes  of  the  British  Coal  Commission. 

(London  Times  and  London  Daily  Herald.) 

ONE  suspects  that  even  the  "bobbie"  at  the  door 
has  an  inkling  of  the  truth.  He  is  the  ideal  Lon- 
don policeman,  as  authentically  English  as  West- 
minster itself.  In  front  of  the  door-way  of  the 
House  of  Lords  he  stands,  as  stiff  as  a  caryatid, 
while  inside  Revolution  holds  its  full-dress  re- 
hearsal. Outwardly  he  preserves  his  professional 
cheery  aloofness.  "The  Coal  Commission,  Sir? 
It's  in  the  King's  Robing  Room.  Yes,  Sir.  Right 
ahead,  Sir."  But  even  for  a  London  policeman, 
who  has  experienced  all  things,  it  is  a  bit  con- 
fusing to  stand  guard  over  a  revolution.  It  is 
like  escorting  a  hurricane  across  the  street. 

As  for  the  rest  of  London  it  is  skeptical  of 
revolution,  which,  like  suicide,  is  a  thing  "one  does 
not  do."  In  this  respectable  English  view  revolu- 
tion is  a  foreign  malady,  the  indicia  of  which  are 

[105] 


riots,  the  release  of  prisoners,  promiscuous  shoot- 
ing on  the  streets  and  Sabbath  breaking.  None  of 
these  signs  do  you  note  when  you  pass  the  police- 
man and  enter  the  King's  Robing  Room,  a  spa- 
cious lofty  chamber,  the  walls  brilliantly  decorated 
with  scenes  from  the  lives  of  King  Arthur  and  Sir 
Galahad.  Six  men  sit  on  one  side  of  a  long  table 
and  six  on  the  other  and  between  them  suave  and 
witty  Justice  Sankey,  presiding  officer  and  mod- 
erator. The  six  men  on  the  labor  side  do  not 
carry  bombs  and  will  not  mount  barricades.  There 
is  Robert  Smillie,  the  Miner's  President,  clear- 
eyed,  cool,  a  hard  hitter  and  fair  fighter,  a  guiding 
mind.  There  is  Herbert  Smith,  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent,  slow  to  speak  but  effective  in  speech.  Near 
him  sits  Frank  Hodges,  the  Miners'  Secretary, 
young,  ardent,  nimble-witted,  with  an  education 
begun  in  the  mines,  continued  at  the  University, 
and  still  continuing.  Then  there  is  Sidney  Webb ; 
R.  H.  Tawney,  fellow  of  Balliol  and  promoter 
of  the  Workers'  Educational  Association ;  and  Sir 
Leo  Chiozza  Money,  Socialist,  author,  statisti- 
cian, alert  as  a  lynx.  These  men  are  among  the 
ablest  in  Great  Britain.  The  men  on  the  other 
side  are  also  very  capable  but  intellectually  less 
distinguished.  The  witnesses  are  clever,  dull,  fa- 
cile, pedantic.  Some  of  the  testimony  is  technical, 
some  abstruse,  some  bookish.  At  times  you  imag- 
ine that  you  are  watching  a  hesitating  glacier,  not 
a  rapid  revolution. 

But  that  is  how  they  manage  in  England.    The 
English  are  an  ironic  people  taking  a  solemn  pleas- 
[106] 


ure  in  grotesquely  false  appearances.  Things 
there  are  never  what  they  seem.  The  servant, 
who  says  "Thank  you,  Sir,"  is  not  a  cringing  but 
an  assertive  person  who  knows  he  is  better  than 
you,  and  the  excessively  dull  Britisher,  who  seems 
impervious  to  a  joke,  may  be  merely  undercutting 
your  wit.  No  foreigner  can  gauge  the  democracy, 
aristocracy,  gravity  or  levity  of  this  gifted,  topsy- 
turvy folk.  It  is  only  in  England  that  revolutions 
take  place  in  the  King's  Robing  Room  in  the  min- 
utes of  a  Coal  Commission. 

It  is  no  ordinary  commission.  Your  usual  Royal 
Commission  is  your  only  true  grave-digger,  talk- 
ing to  death  the  quick  emotions  generated  during 
decades  of  oppression  and  decently  interring  them. 
Or  an  embalmer,  who  preserves  from  decay  the 
dead  body  of  grievances  to  the  end  that,  later, 
spectacled  undergraduates  may  deplore  the  evils 
of  a  former  day.  From  Royal  Commission  to 
Parliamentary  waste-paper  basket  has  been  the 
road  of  the  well-laid  plans  of  zealous  men  who 
imagined  that  they  were  making  history.  This 
Coal  Commission,  unlike  the  others,  is  itself  a 
statutory  body  "with  authority  of  Parliament  be- 
hind it."  It  is  a  continuing  commission  with  the 
widest  terms  of  reference.  It  is  bi-partisan,  not 
impartial.  It  is  a  commission  with  the  right  to 
compel  the  production  of  persons  and  papers,  and 
it  uses  that  right  freely. 

I  was  present  when  Mr.  Smillie  demanded  the 
appearance  of  various  noblemen  who  receive  their 
income  from  mine  royalties.  "I  ask  you,"  he 

[ 


said  to  the  Chairman,  "to  subpoena  the  Duke  of 
Northumberland,  the  Earl  of  Durham,  the  Mar- 
quis of  Bute,  Lord  Tredegar  ..."  As  he  pro- 
nounced each  name  and  title  the  Chairman  re- 
peated them,  and  in  this  contrast  of  voices  and 
intonations  I  seemed  to  discover  one  of  the  roots 
of  the  elusive  class  conflict  in  England.  It  was 
as  though  men  of  two  nations  spoke;  the  rough 
proletarian  accent  of  Smillie  contrasted  harshly 
with  the  easy,  cultured  utterance  of  Justice  San- 
key,  the  neat  clearness  of  his  syllables,  his  quiet 
cadences.  It  almost  seemed  as  though  the  Justice 
was  mocking  Mr.  Smillie.  But  he  was  not  mock- 
ing; it  was  merely  the  University  conversing  with 
the  board  school.  Behind  his  charming  smile  the 
Justice,  as  he  toyed  with  hi*  pencil,  was  swiftly 
deciding  to  bring  the  Peers  hire  before  the  miners 
with  papers,  documents  and,  if  necessary,  title 
deeds. 

Now  the  mere  summoning  of  these  Peers  was 
almost  a  revolutionary  event,  for  it  is  unusual  for 
coal-diggers  to  subpoena  Lords.  It  is  a  sign  of 
a  social  overturn.  True,  it  is  in  the  King's  name 
that  they  are  summoned  but  King  George  the 
Fifth,  by  the  grace  of  God,  had  little  enough  to 
do  with  it.  Some  day,  perhaps,  the  King  will 
summon  the  King  to  the  King's  Robing  Room  to 
show  cause  why  the  King  shall  not  be  deposed, 
and,  if  summoned,  the  King  will  come.  So  the 
Peers  came  and  testified  and  went,  came  and  went 
in  sober  twentieth  century  morning  clothes,  and 
all  that  spectacular  part  of  the  business  is  over. 
[108] 


But  the  question  remains  what  does  it  all  mean? 
What  did  these  miners  and  these  Peers  of  the 
Realm  think  of  one  another?  And  what  is  to 
come  of  it? 

The  summoning  of  the  Peers  was  not  a  mere 
theatricalism  but  a  formal  challenge  of  the  highest 
social  class  by  the  lowest.  Mr.  Smillie  knew,  and 
the  Peers  knew,  that  both  are  protagonists,  the 
champions  of  multitudes  far  greater  than  the 
groups  immediately  represented.  Back  of  the 
miners  stand  millions  of  wage-earners  and  their 
sympathizers  who  have  never  descended  a  shaft, 
and  back  of  the  Peers  millions  of  business  and 
professional  men,  and  good  men  and  women  of 
all  trades  and  none,  who  do  not  aspire  even  to 
knighthood.  The  calling  of  the  Peers  was  a  warn- 
ing to  all  that  the  workers  were  taking  high 
ground.  In  earlier  days,  as  in  the  heroic  coal 
strike  of  1844,  the  miners  asked  only  for  a  pitiful 
measure  of  justice,  for  the  right  to  have  their  coal 
honestly  weighed,  for  the  abolition  of  truck  stores, 
for  a  few  pence  more  and  a  few  minutes  less.  To- 
day their  demands  reach  down  to  the  deepest  roots 
of  our  industrial  system.  They  demand  the  nation- 
alization of  the  mines,  the  control  of  the  industry 
by  the  miners,  the  abolition  of  profits.  Through 
their  insistent  questions  there  runs  this  revolution- 
ary doctrine;  the  dukes,  earls,  and  marquises  did 
not  produce  the  coal;  they  perform  no  public 
service;  they  derive  their  wealth  from  the  labor 
of  the  exploited  miners;  they  have  no  title  to  abso- 
lute ownership;  the  State  has  the  right  and  the 
[  109] 


duty  to  take  over  these  mines,  with  or  without 
compensation. 

When  men  feel  deeply  they  tend  to  drop  into 
religious  phraseology. 

Mr.  Smillie — "There  is  a  very  old  book  which 
says:  'The  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  ful- 
ness thereof.'  Would  you  deny  that  author- 
ity?" 

The  Witness  (Lord  Durham) — "I  prefer  an- 
other authority  which  says:  'Render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's,  and 
unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's.' ' 

Mr.  Smillie — "That  is  exactly  what  I  want  to 
be  done  at  the  present  time,  because  if  'the 
earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof,' 
it  cannot  be  the  property  of  individuals." 

Does  not  this  battle  of  the  texts  recall  the  theo- 
logical arguments  of  the  "mad  priest  of  Kent," 
who  five  hundred  years  ago  went  from  village 
to  village  haranguing  the  peasants  on  the  greens? 
It  is  the  same  appeal  to  an  original  human  equal- 
ity, the  same  confident  reliance  upon  God's  own 
intention. 

"Good  people,"  said  John  Ball,  "things  will 
never  go  well  in  England,  so  long  as  goods  be 
not  kept  in  common,  and  so  long  as  there  be 
villeins  and  gentlemen.  By  what  right  are  they 
whom  men  call  lords  greater  folk  than  we?  If 
all  come  from  the  same  father  and  mother,  Adam 
and  Eve,  how  can  they  say  or  prove  that  they 
are  better  than  we,  if  it  be  not  that  they  make 
[no] 


us  gain  for  them  by  our  toil  what  they  spend  in 
their  pride? 

"They  are  clothed  in  velvet  and  are  warm  in 
their  furs  and  ermine,  while  we  are  covered  in 
rags.  They  have  wine  and  spices  and  fair  bread, 
and  we  oatcake  and  straw  and  water  to  drink. 
They  have  leisure  and  fine  houses;  we  have  pain 
and  labor,  the  wind  and  rain  in  the  fields.  And 
yet  it  is  of  us  and  of  our  toil  that  these  men  hold 
their  state." 

Today,  as  five  hundred  years  ago,  but  today  in 
the  King's  Robing  Room  instead  of  on  the  village 
green,  you  hear  again  this  eternal  contrast  be- 
tween the  lives  of  rich  and  poor,  between  ermine 
and  rags,  between  leisure  and  fine  houses  and 
"pain  and  labor,  the  wind  and  rain  in  the  fields." 
After  asking  whether  the  late  Duke  of  Hamilton's 
annual  income  was  not  £240,000  Mr.  Smillie  jus- 
tifies his  question  by  pointing  out  that  for  forty 
years  the  miners  and  their  families  on  the  Duke's 
estate  have  been  kept  on  the  verge  of  starvation. 
He  establishes  the  fact  that  the  late  Duke's  fam- 
ily, consisting  of  one  little  girl,  possesses  five  man- 
sions and  he  continues  his  questioning  of  the 
Duke's  agent,  Mr.  Timothy  Warren,  as  follows: 

Mr.  Smillie — "Do  you  know  Hamilton  Place 

well?" 

The  Witness— "Yes." 
Mr.  Smillie — "It  is  a  fairly  large  building  with 

a  good  many  apartments?" 
The  Witness — "Very  large." 
[in] 


Mr.  Smillie — "It  stands  in  an  enclosure  sur- 
rounded by  a  pretty  high  wall.  Just  outside 
the  wall  on  the  west  side  of  the  palace  there 
are  some  of  the  most  miserable  homes  in 
Great  Britain?" 

The  Witness — "I  cannot  use  comparative 
terms,  but  there  are  very  indifferent  houses 
hundreds  of  years  old." 

Mr.  Smillie — "Are  you  aware  that  in  the  town 
of  Hamilton  the  families  of  the  men  who  are 
producing  the  coal  from  the  Duke's  mines 
are  living  four,  five  and  six  in  a  room;  have 
you  any  reason  to  doubt  that  statement?" 

The  Witness — "I  do  not  doubt  it." 

At  last  comes  the  crucial  ethical  problem.  Note 
the  implications  of  question  and  answer. 

Question — "Supposing  he  owned  the  coal,  do 
you  think  it  would  be  unjust  that  he  (the 
Duke)  should  live  in  Hamilton  Place  and  at- 
tend the  Riviera  and  the  racecourse,  drawing 
a  shilling  a  ton  for  every  ton  produced  by 
the  miners,  while  the  miners  who  are  risking 
their  lives  get  less  than  a  shilling  a  ton  for 
hewing  the  coal?  Would  that  be  manifestly 
unfair?" 

Answer — "No." 

I  could  give  many  illustrations  from  these  ques- 
tions to  prove  how  drastic  are  the  changes  the 
miners  demand.  Nothing  less  than  complete  na- 
tionalization will  be  acceptable,  and  it  is  not  abso- 
lutely certain  that  the  miners  desire  even  to  grant 

[IM] 


compensation.  "Is  it  on  the  same  plane,"  asks 
Mr.  Smillie  of  Lord  Tredegar,  uto  confiscate  a 
cottage  built  with  the  life  savings  of  a  man  and 
confiscate  land  no  landlord  ever  did  anything  to 
create?  .  .  .  Surely  you  as  a  legislator  would  be 
the  last  to  say  that  the  State  has  not  the  right  to 
do  what  the  majority  think  they  have  the  right  to 
do.  Are  you  aware  that  landlords  in  the  House 
of  Lords  who  do  not  represent  the  people,  have 
confiscated  by  laws  passed  in  that  House  millions 
of  acres  of  land?" 

Such  questions  reveal  a  revolutionary  intent 
whether  the  titled  mine-owners  are  to  be  reim- 
bursed or  not,  for  even  if  so  compensated  they 
cannot  escape  income  tax  and  death  duties.  If  the 
mines,  railroads,  ships  and  other  great  industrial 
properties  are  gradually  taken  over  by  the  nation 
and  are  run  by  associations  of  workingmen  there 
will  inevitably  arise  a  conflict  of  interest  between 
the  active  groups  controlling  industry  and  the  pas- 
sive groups  in  possession  of  government  bonds, 
paid  to  the  former  owners  of  these  properties. 
The  issue  of  such  a  conflict  is  patent.  Year  by 
year,  the  wages  of  the  men  in  these  industries  will 
be  slowly  increased  even  if  the  enterprises  must  be 
subventioned  by  taxes,  in  other  words,  even  if  the 
higher  wages  must  be  paid  out  of  the  incomes  of 
the  present  owners.  This  gradual  encroachment 
is  but  a  sign  of  one  of  those  vast  and  subtle  sub- 
versions in  society,  in  which  new  values  are  cre- 
ated and  old  values  destroyed,  in  which  some 
groups  become  richer  and  some  poorer,  in  which 


the  equilibrium  or  balance  of  society  is  altered,  in 
which  power  passes,  not  suddenly  or  completely 
but  gradually  and  partially,  from  one  social  class 
to  another. 

Transitions  of  this  sort  never  occur  without 
some  friction  and  loss.  When  feudal  society  disap* 
peared  many  men  lost  their  hold  on  life,  and  the 
advent  of  machinery,  upon  which  our  entire  indus- 
trial structure  now  rests,  caused  endless  destitu- 
tion and  demoralization  and  the  annihilation  of 
millions  of  petty  existences.  To  eliminate  the 
profit-maker  is  to  run  the  risk  of  a  vast  increase 
in  bureaucracy  and  red-tape,  to  uneducate  men 
trained  in  our  present  ideals  and  methods,  and 
perhaps  to  evoke  or  intensify  a  corporate  egoism 
of  wage-earners,  unenlightened  and  self-destruc- 
tive. On  the  other  hand  such  a  transition,  or  rev- 
olution, for  that  is  what  it  is,  will  effect  a  greater 
equalization  of  income  and  wealth;  will  divert 
to  productive  purposes  or  to  useful  consumption, 
vast  quantities  of  goods  now  wasted  in  competi- 
tive luxury;  may  create  a  new  freedom  for  mil- 
lions now  industrially  subject;  may  evoke  new 
productive  energies,  now  dormant;  may,  finally, 
create  and  firmly  establish  new  ideals,  which  will 
make  the  world  saner  and  better.  Honest  and 
intelligent  men  will  differ  as  to  whether  this  revo- 
lution is  to  be  welcomed  or  deplored,  but  there  is 
no  wisdom  in  merely  closing  our  eyes.  We  should 
recognize  the  new  currents  upon  which  men's 
minds  are  borne.  The  first  social  virtue  is  pre- 
vision. 


That  the  conflict  will  come,  is,  in  fact,  already 
upon  us,  seems  obvious.  It  may  be  very  peace- 
ful, slow  and  dilatory  conflict.  It  may  give  the 
dispossessed  millionaires  and  their  children  and 
perhaps  grandchildren  ample  time  and  means  to 
find  their  useful  place  in  the  new  order.  Among 
the  quiet  revolutionists  in  England  are  men  whose 
outlook  upon  the  economic  inequalities  of  today  is 
like  that  of  the  more  moderate  abolitionists,  who 
wished  to  end  "the  peculiar  institution"  only 
gradually  and  to  recompense  all  slave-owners. 
Whether  this  transition  in  England  is  to  be  suc- 
cessful or  for  a  time  aborted,  whether  it  is  to  be 
salutary  or  destructive  depends  upon  the  mutual 
attitude  of  these  miners  and  Peers,  and  of  the 
classes  standing  behind  them.  That,  as  I  take  it, 
is  the  chief  lesson  to  be  studied  in  the  King's  Rob- 
ing Room. 

What  the  miners  think  is  easier  to  discern  than 
what  the  Peers  think.  A  class,  comprising  mil- 
lions must  think  aloud;  like  Hamlet's  players  it 
"cannot  keep  counsel."  How  this  class  regards 
the  Peers  and  their  royalties,  the  possessing 
classes  and  their  possessions,  may  be  read  in  thou- 
sands of  books  and  pamphlets  issued  by  trade 
unionists,  socialists  and  syndicalists.  Their 
thought  is  of  more  than  one  strand  and  is  not  al- 
ways easy  to  disentangle.  At  bottom,  however, 
there  is  discontent  with  the  distribution  of  na- 
tional wealth  and  income,  opposition  to  the  indus- 
trial system  which  permits  this  distribution, 
eagerness  to  use  political  power  for  the  destruc- 

[us] 


tion  of  capitalism,  willingness  if  necessary  to 
achieve  this  result  by  a  general  strike  temporarily 
paralyzing  society.  But  the  intense  feeling  behind 
these  convictions  is  more  obscure  and  to  predict 
what  the  miners  will  do  one  must  know  what  their 
life  has  been,  underground  and  above  ground,  dur- 
ing a  century  and  what  it  is  today.  A  few  gen- 
erations ago  miners'  children  of  seven  and  eight 
years  were  daily  dragged  to  their  work  in  the 
mines  owned  by  the  ancestors  of  the  titled  owners 
of  today.  Naked  men  and  women,  blackened 
with  coal  dust,  worked  underground  in  a  hideous 
promiscuity.  They  died  of  pneumonia,  tubercu- 
losis and  interesting  occupational  diseases  like 
"blackspittle."  Today  conditions,  though 
immensely  improved,  are  still  bad.  In  some  dis- 
tricts five-ninths  of  all  miners'  houses  contain  only 
two  rooms  and  one-ninth  contain  only  one  room. 
The  men  who  have  worked  or  fought  to  free  the 
world  still  struggle  for  their  own  economic  free- 
dom, while  a  one-eyed  Parliament  grants  tens  of 
millions  to  the  men  who  own  the  mines.  These 
miners  at  their  dangerous  work  and  in  their  "very 
indifferent  houses"  are  disillusioned  and  angry. 
Perhaps  they  are  not  quite  just  to  the  Peers;  in 
conflict  men  are  seldom  just.  Nor  need  we  be  sur- 
prised if  the  acrid  hate  evoked  by  the  war  is  now 
turned  inward  so  that  social  classes  forget  the 
amenities  and  are  more  than  usually  bitter  and  un- 
just towards  one  another. 

What  the  Peers  think  it  is  harder  to  discover, 
for  the  Peers  comprise  men  of  diverse  origins  and 

[1*61 


varying  abilities,  some  of  the  ablest  men  in  Eng- 
land and  not  a  few  mediocrities.  They  represent 
two  principles,  the  principle  of  aristocracy  and  the 
principle  of  money.  A  titled  millionaire  is  a  mil- 
lionaire and  he  considers  his  million  as  well  as 
title.  Being  aristocrats,  with  the  prestige  and 
discipline  of  their  caste  behind  them,  these  men 
stand  up  straight  and  take  punishment  smilingly. 
They  speak  out  the  truth  and  do  not  evade.  The 
Duke  of  Northumberland  is  asked  whether  he  was 
come  before  the  Commission  to  defend  his  own 
interests  and  he  promptly  answers  "Certainly." 
Perhaps  this  courage  is  in  part  due  to  an  obdurate 
persuasion  that  the  British  aristocracy  having  sur- 
vived so  many  attacks — partly  by  concessions — 
cannot  now  be  destroyed.  The  British  aristocracy 
is  excellent  at  survival;  it  surrenders  but  it  never 
dies. 

Neither  does  it  ever  really  learn.  Some  of  its 
members  understand  England  and  the  world  ex- 
cellently, but  the  class  as  a  whole  approaches  each 
new  crisis  with  no  adequate  conception  of  the 
trend  of  modern  development  and  it  survives,  as 
Falstaff  fought,  "on  instinct."  If  the  miners  do 
not  understand  the  Peers,  the  Peers  do  not  even 
try  to  understand  the  miners.  They  come  to  the 
Coal  Commission  with  little  comprehension  of  the 
motives  and  emotions  of  five  million  trade  union- 
ists. Their  argument  is  largely  legalistic,  based 
on  ten  years'  possession,  on  ancient  titles,  which 
were  musty  long  before  Cromwell  and  Elizabeth, 
on  the  legal  assumption  that  centuries  of  effortless 


profit-taking  justify  more  centuries  of  effortless 
profit-taking.  These  Peers  have  read  their  Morn- 
ing Post  and  therefore  know  that  something  is 
wrong,  that  the  miners  are  thinking  too  much 
and  working  too  little,  that  the  hungry  are  becom- 
ing greedy  and  the  poor,  insatiable.  But  how  can 
they  understand  what  the  grimy  miners  are  think- 
ing? Though  they  are  far  from  unintelligent, 
their  long-time  security,  their  serene  elevation 
above  the  sweaty  struggle  for  life  and  their  conde- 
scending marriage  of  convenience  with  the  wealth 
of  Great  Britain  have  blunted  certain  faculties. 
Their  diked  minds  are  protected  against  the  turbid 
streams  of  thought  that  course  through  the  back 
streets  of  England.  They  are,  without  suspecting 
it,  out  of  date.  Some  would  like  "to  button  their 
pockets  and  stand  still";  others  would  prefer  to 
make  "reasonable  concessions" ;  almost  all  would 
desire  a  general  improvement  in  the  physical  con- 
ditions of  the  wage-earners  if  it  did  not  mean 
too  heavy  an  increase  in  the  income  tax.  We  are 
dealing  here  with  good  men,  patriotic,  honorable, 
decent,  whose  sins  are  sins  of  omission  due  to  ig- 
norance rather  than  greed  and  to  tradition  rather 
than  invention.  They  have  merely  let  things  go. 
Moreover  their  vision  is  as  much  distorted  by 
what  they  know  as  by  what  they  do  not  know.  A 
little  history  is  a  dangerous  thing  and  all  hered- 
itary classes  know  their  history.  They  know  what 
befell  former  agitators  like  Wat  Tyler  and  his 
band  of  "shoeless  ruffians";  the  rebel  Fitz  Osbert, 
stripped  naked  and  dragged  at  the  tail  of  a  horse 

[nl] 


over  the  rough  stones  of  London  and  dead  before 
he  reached  Tyburn;  the  innumerable  Jack  Cades 
and  Robert  Kets,  hanged  in  chains,  drawn  and 
quartered.  What  they  do  not  so  clearly  perceive 
is  that  the  relation  of  classes  has  changed,  that 
the  whole  vast  solid  plane  of  industrial  society 
is  being  slowly  tilted,  that  some  classes  are  being 
depressed  and  some  elevated,  and  that  behind 
these  tiresomely  statistical  representatives  of  the 
miners  is  a  compact  strength  and  formidableness, 
a  conscious  will,  like  that  which  enabled  their  own 
ancestors  centuries  ago  to  extort  these  very  mines 
in  return  for  real  and  imaginary  services  and  dis- 
services to  the  King  and  Realm.  The  true  suc- 
cessors of  the  acquisitive  Peers  of  centuries  ago 
are  not  their  lineal  descendants,  who  have  become 
inert  owners,  but  that  active  and  indispensable 
social  group  which  today  has  the  like  will  to  ac- 
quire and  an  infinitely  deeper  sense  of  moral  justifi- 
cation in  acquiring — the  organized  and  self-organ- 
izing wage-earning  class. 

Nor  do  the  Peers  seem  fully  to  realize  the 
strength  of  the  group  opposed  to  them.  That 
strength  is  only  in  part  political;  it  is  in  still 
greater  measure  economic.  It  consists  chiefly  of 
the  power  to  stop  or  limit  work,  the  strike  and  the 
strike  on  the  job.  The  strike,  that  crippling  wea- 
pon of  the  wage-earners,  having  outgrown  the 
single  shop,  has  now  outgrown  the  single  industry 
and  become  the  cessation  of  all  essential  work 
throughout  the  community.  It  is  a  wholesale  pas- 
sive resistance  of  a  class,  which  despite  many  de- 


feats,  cannot  ultimately  be  divided  against  itself, 
cannot  be  coerced,  cannot  be  destroyed  and  cannot 
be  dispensed  with.  The  general  strike,  such  as 
we  have  never  yet  seen  it,  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  an  economic  blockade  of  the  whole  nation. 
Back  of  this  giant  strike,  moreover,  lies  an  even 
more  subtle,  deadly  and  uncontrollable  weapon — 
the  refusal  of  men  greatly  to  exert  themselves. 
This  growing  reluctance  of  wage-earners  to  give 
more  than  they  get  is  the  Achilles-foot  of  our 
modern  industrial  system.  It  is  a  weapon  which 
in  the  end  injures  those  who  use  it  as  well  as 
those  against  whom  it  is  used,  and  it  is  the  more 
dangerous  because  it  destroys  habits  of  industry 
and  injures  the  morale  which  a  century  of  capital- 
ism has  strengthened  among  workers.  But  how 
can  you  overcome  the  wage-earner's  refusal  to 
work  hard  and  his  acquired  habit  of  taking  things 
easy  if  he  believes  that  the  chief  thing  he  is  work- 
ing for  is  the  profit  of  mine-owners,  already  over- 
rich?  You  can  conscript  labor  if  you  care  to  take 
the  risk,  but  you  cannot  conscript  enthusiasm,  and 
without  enthusiasm  labor  today  is  a  dead  limb. 
The  miners'  leaders  have  predicted,  and  in  a  sense 
promised,  that  the  men  will  work  with  all  their 
might  if  the  management  is  theirs  and  the  profits 
are  public  profits,  but  not  otherwise.  It  is  of 
course  a  threat  even  more  than  a  prophecy,  for 
without  enthusiastic  labor  private  ownership  of  the 
mines  will  be  unprofitable.  It  is  compulsion.  But 
the  miners  believe,  rightly  or  wronglv,  that  they 
have  never  gained  anything  except  by  compulsion. 
[  120] 


This  compulsion,  which  lies  in  the  nature  of 
the  situation  rather  than  in  the  will  of  particular 
men,  reveals  the  secret  of  the  semi-decorous  meet- 
ings between  miners  and  Peers  in  the  King's  Rob- 
ing Room.  No  sudden  affection  brought  together 
these  two  groups  but  a  mutual  recognition  of 
strength  and  opposition  and  the  desire  for  a  pre- 
liminary testing.  Because  compulsion  lies  so  near 
the  surface,  the  labor  situation  in  England  today, 
as  it  is  revealed  in  the  Coal  Commission,  in  gov- 
ernment offices  and  in  the  swarming,  dirty  alleys 
of  industrial  and  mining  cities  is  big  with  grave 
possibilities.  Acerbity  grows  between  miners  and 
Lords  as  also  between  their  adherents  outside. 
Never  before  have  the  wage-earners  been  so  con- 
scious of  strength.  The  Triple  Alliance  of  miners, 
railroad  men,  and  transport  workers  (fifteen  hun- 
dred thousand  solidly  organized  men)  believe  that 
they  are  able  to  stop  the  industry  of  the  nation, 
to  shut  it  up  as  one  snaps  a  rat-trap.  On  the 
other  hand  the  War  Office  is  preparing  to  enlist 
soldiers  as  strike  breakers,  to  turn  the  army 
against  the  strikers.  There  is  danger  that  in  this 
mood  the  struggle  may  be  fought  out  on  the 
lowest  plane  with  bloodshed  and  starvation  as  the 
weapons. 

Such  is  the  drift  of  today,  a  movement  steadily 
gaining  impetus  towards  a  catastrophic  collision. 
Fortunately,  however,  we  are  dealing  with  Eng- 
land, a  moderate,  sensible,  practical  nation,  a  na- 
tion that  sees  more  than  it  says,  a  nation  with 
poise  and  with  traditions  of  self-government  and 

[121] 


fair  play,  a  nation  which  respects  individual  liberty 
and  protects  it  as  we  in  America  do  not  yet  do. 
England  has  been  faced  before  with  dangers  and 
has  avoided  them  by  her  moderation.  "It  is  too 
late  for  a  peaceful  solution,"  wrote  Frederick  En- 
gels  in  1845  of  the  England  of  his  day.  "The 
classes  are  divided  more  and  more  sharply,  the 
spirit  of  resistance  penetrates  the  workers,  the 
bitterness  intensifies,  the  guerrilla  skirmishes  be- 
come concentrated  in  more  important  battles,  and 
soon  a  slight  impulse  will  suffice  to  set  the  ava- 
lanche in  motion.  Then,  indeed,  will  the  war  cry 
resound  throughout  the  land :  'War  to  the  palaces, 
peace  to  the  cottages !' — but  then  it  will  be  too  late 
for  the  rich  to  beware." 

That  was  seventy-four  years  ago,  and  England 
weathered  the  storm.  She  changed  her  policy, 
protected  the  workers,  gave  them  better  wages, 
shorter  hours,  more  education  and  more  political 
influence,  and  thus  regained  their  allegiance.  To- 
day she  is  met  by  a  revolt  in  some  respects  similar 
in  quality  but  entirely  different  in  magnitude  from 
that  which  she  faced  three-quarters  of  a  century 
ago.  There  are  many  favorable  factors:  her 
great  wealth,  which  is  a  hostage  to  peace,  the 
intelligence  of  her  workers,  the  calmness  of  her 
leaders,  her  spirit  of  tolerance  which  is  the  great- 
est asset  of  all.  Nowhere  in  the  world  have  plans 
for  the  gradual  admission  of  wage-earners  to  the 
actual  control  of  industry  been  so  carefully  formu- 
lated as  in  England.  But  passions  run  high  and 
in  both  camps  are  fiery-tempered  extremists,  who 
[  122] 


hate  all  concessions  and  halting  steps  and  prefer 
to  an  orderly,  elderly  progress  a  swifter  even 
though  it  be  a  sanguinary  solution.  That  is  Eng- 
land's choice  of  alternatives  and  that,  eventually, 
will  be  America's.  Which  shall  it  be? 


[  123] 


THE  CRUMBLING  HOUSE  OF  LORDS 


THE  CRUMBLING  HOUSE  OF  LORDS 

Lloyd  George — "A  duke  costs  as  much  as  a  Dreadnought  and 
is  twice  as  dangerous." 

I  HAD  come  to  England  to  witness  the  Revolution 
in  1911. 

Like  other  Americans,  I  knew  that  the  great 
English  political  parties  had  locked  horns  over 
the  question  of  the  House  of  Lords.  I  knew 
that  the  British  Government,  backed  by  a  ma- 
jority of  the  nation,  desired  a  vast  constitutional 
revolution,  which  would  deprive  the  House  of 
Lords  of  its  present  right  finally  to  reject  legisla- 
tion. I  knew  that  a  bill  to  attain  this  end  was 
being  vigorously  pushed  through  Parliament. 

What  I  did  not  know — what,  in  fact,  I  had 
come  to  seek — was  the  true  inwardness  of  this 
portentous  impending  change.  What  did  it  mean? 
What  had  come  over  the  tradition-loving  English 
people,  who  for  eight  hundred  years  had  been  rev- 
erently submissive  to  the  House  of  Lords?  What 
was  the  offending  of  these  Lords  of  England? 

I  closed  my  paper-bound  volume,  "Peers  versus 
People,"  as  the  little  train,  after  its  swift  run  from 
Southampton,  carried  me  into  the  swarming  Lon- 
don station.  I  avoided  the  skurrying  porters  who 
clamored  for  my  baggage ;  evaded  the  importuni- 
[  127] 


ties  of  station  cabmen  and  taxi-drivers,  and  es- 
caped into  the  street  to  call  my  own  hansom.  I 
was  unconsciously  irritated  by  this  excess  of  serv- 
ice proffered  by  all  these  superfluous  station  peo- 
pie. 

It  was  evening.  The  London  mist  engulfed  the 
gay  thronged  streets.  Myriads  of  pale  lights 
twinkled  over  the  square — lights  from  street 
lamps,  from  shop  windows,  from  omnibuses, 
from  thousands  of  cabs  which  darted  here,  there, 
everywhere,  ready  to  pounce  upon  a  prospective 
"fare." 

As  I  started  to  call  one  of  these  cabs,  suddenly 
there  arose,  out  of  the  darkness,  as  though  evoked 
by  some  Aladdin's  lamp,  four  tattered,  pale-faced 
men  of  the  underworld.  The  four  sprang  forward 
to  render  me  this  slight  service.  One,  quicker  than 
his  fellows,  tore  open  the  cab  door,  and  received 
his  penny.  Then  the  men  vanished,  slinking  into 
the  gray  mist. 

"Whence  come  these  men?  What  manner  of 
city  was  this  that  wasted  four  able-bodied  men 
on  so  paltry  a  task?" 

Later  that  evening,  when  in  the  crossing  currents 
of  the  streets,  my  cab  came  to  a  halt,  I  caught  an- 
other fleeting  glance  at  London  misery.  A  naked, 
dirt-caked  arm,  thrust  from  a  sleeveless  coat, 
touched  my  shoulder;  a  haggard  face  peered  into 
the  cab  window,  and  a  voice  harsh  with  anxiety 
asked,  "Can  I  'ave  the  luggage,  sir?"  As  the 
cab  wound  through  the  mazes  of  the  London 
traffic,  I  saw  this  tattered  man  doggedly  running 


behind  us.  Not  once  did  he  lose  sight  of  the  cab. 
At  the  hotel  he  was  waiting,  breathless. 

"It's  mine,  sir,"  he  panted.  "You  promised  me 
the  luggage,  sir." 

For  the  chance  of  earning  a  shilling  at  work 
which  did  not  need  him,  this  wretched  man  had 
followed  me  through  tortuous  miles  of  London 
streets.  What  a  city  it  was  I 

I  did  not  wish  to  see  deeper  into  this  abyss. 
I  had  not  come  to  England  to  view  bottomless 
misery.  But  what  is  everywhere,  cannot  be  hid. 
On  the  following  days  I  saw  in  street  after  street, 
workless,  homeless  miserables,  men  with  broken 
shoes  and  dropping  rags  of  clothes.  I  saw  men 
who,  for  the  pennies  of  the  passers-by,  perfunctor- 
ily swept  crossings  already  clean.  Other  silent 
supplicants  were  seated  on  cold  pavements,  upon 
the  flagstones  of  which  they  had  crayoned  rude 
sketches  to  attract  a  slender  alms.  .  I  saw  abject 
women,  with  trailing,  bedraggled  skirts,  and  with 
a  flat,  sterile  vacancy  of  expression,  more  tragic 
than  despair.  There  were  drunken  men,  too,  and 
sodden  women,  and  files  of  men — or  of  what  had 
once  been  men — waiting  outside  bakers'  and 
butchers'  shops  for  crusts  and  refuse.  The  halt, 
the  blind,  the  unemployed,  the  shifty  beggars,  and 
the  wretches  too  timid  to  beg,  passed  in  an  unend- 
ing procession.  Long  before  sunset  the  lines  had 
formed  for  admission  to  the  casual  wards  of  the 
almshouses. 

"It's  deplorable,"  commented  my  English 
friend  (he  was  a  doctor  with  a  fashionable  prac- 
[129] 


tice  and  aristocratic  prepossessions).  "Still  every 
country  has  its  poverty.  Even  in  the  States — " 

"Yes,"  I  admitted.  "It  is  not  for  us  to  throw 
stones." 

Later,  however,  as  on  our  silent  homeward 
walk,  I  summed  up  all  the  dismal  impressions  of 
the  day,  I  began  to  feel  that  after  all  there  was 
a  difference.  American  poverty  was  overwhelming, 
but  it  was  not  everywhere,  and  it  was  not  so  hope- 
less. Men  did  escape  from  American  slums,  and 
their  children  escaped. 

But  the  English  slum  was  a  prison,  in  which 
the  fallen  man  and  his  children  and  grandchildren 
rotted  and  rotted.  There  was  a  droop,  a  sagging, 
to  these  people;  an  inexpressible  indifference  to 
surroundings,  an  utter  self-abandonment.  You 
could  seek  out  poverty  anywhere,  but  in  London  it 
obtruded  itself — stark,  menacing,  unescapable, 
like  the  naked,  dirt-caked  arm  of  the  superfluous 
wretch  who  had  followed  my  hansom. 

"Doctor,"  I  asked  suddenly,  "are  you  comfort- 
able people  not  sometimes  afraid?" 

"Of  those  fellows?  No,"  he  replied,  "they're 
used  to  being  underdogs.  They're  too  spirit- 
less to  revolt.  A  people  crushed  to  earth,"  he 
laughed — somewhat  unpleasantly — "is  crushed  to 
earth." 

I  did  not  laugh. 

"What  if  they  should?"  I  asked. 

He  did  not  answer — and  after  a  while  we 
talked  of  other  things. 

That  question  protruded  itself  again  and  again 

[  130] 


like  the  persistent  arm  of  a  beggar.  "What  if 
they  should?" 

I  did  not  like  to  think  of  it.  I  dared  not  im- 
agine what  might  happen  if  in  some  day  of  na- 
tional disaster,  the  gutters  of  London  should 
empty  themselves  of  their  human  refuse;  if  in 
some  day  of  weakness  this  careless,  garish  civiliza- 
tion should  be  trampled  under  foot  by  its  victims. 

Later  I  learned  that  other  men  in  England 
thought  similar  thoughts. 

'What  if  they  should?" 

From  the  gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons 
I  listened  to  the  debates  on  the  Parliament  (or 
Veto)  bill.  It  was  all  beautifully  simple.  The 
measure  provided  that  henceforth  the  House  of 
Lords  should  have  no  jurisdiction  over  any  money 
bill  or  any  financial  legislation  whatsoever.  It 
provided  that  all  other  bills  which  had  passed 
the  House  of  Commons  in  three  successive  ses- 
sions, should  become  law  without  the  consent  of 
the  Lords,  provided  that  two  years  had  elapsed 
between  original  introduction  and  final  passage. 
It  provided  that  members  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons should  be  elected  for  five  instead  of  for 
seven  years. 

The  debates  covered  no  new  ground.  The 
terse,  lucid,  convincing  sentences  of  the  prime  min- 
ister, Mr.  Asquith — sentences  at  once  cold  and 
luminous;  the  more  vacillating,  but  graceful  and 
subtle  rejoinders  of  Mr.  Balfour;  the  caustic,  in- 
cisive interruptions  of  Lord  Hugh  Cecil;  the  stir- 
ring eloquence  of  the  home  secretary,  Mr. 

[131] 


Churchill,  formed  but  a  repetition  of  what  had 
already  been  thrashed  out  in  a  hundred  constitu- 
encies. What  was  new  and  strange  was  not  what 
was  said  but  the  manner  and  tone  of  this  great 
controversy. 

The  Conservatives,  who  are  the  allies  of  the 
Lords,  were  fighting  with  their  backs  to  the  wall. 
Tenacious,  obstinate,  they  seemed  nevertheless  to 
foresee  inevitable  defeat.  They  presented  no 
united  front,  no  clear-cut  plan  of  campaign.  It 
was  as  though  they  had  come  to  bury  the  Lords, 
not  to  praise  them. 

Circled  about  the  Conservatives  sat  the  Lib- 
eral, Labor  and  Irish  members,  all  opponents  to 
the  Lords.  These  men  were  elate  with  the  hope 
of  victory.  I  marveled  at  a  new  spirit  which  had 
stamped  that  inflexible  expression  upon  Miese 
men's  faces.  Surely  this  conflict  was  more  than  a 
mere  constitutional  battle.  It  was  a  war  of  ideals ; 
of  New  against  Old;  a  resistless  sweep  of  demo- 
cratic waters  against  ancient,  crumbling  barriers. 
I  wondered  whence  came  this  vast,  new  impetus. 

The  House  rose,  and  I  found  myself  again  upon 
the  street.  There  in  the  light  of  the  pale  street 
lamps,  I  saw  an  aging,  workless  man,  dejectedly 
marching,  marching  through  a  sleepless  night. 
Another  appeared,  more  wretched  than  the  first; 
then  another,  and  another.  For  an  hour  I  stood 
there,  though  the  rain  had  begun  to  fall.  Through 
all  that  hour  the  weary  march  of  the  dispirited, 
ghastly  army  never  ceased.  Out  of  mean  streets 
came  dragging,  shuffling  men  into  the  open  square, 

[  132] 


and  then,  heeding  nothing,  casting  not  a  glance  at 
the  majestic  building  in  which  Lords  and  Com- 
mons battle  for  supremacy,  they  disappeared 
again,  losing  themselves  in  other  mean  streets. 

As  I  went  about  gleaning  opinions,  I  was  sur- 
prised to  discover  that  personally  most  of  the 
Lords  were  liked,  even  by  men  opposed  to  their 
rule.  "The  Peers  are  a  good  sort,"  a  Liberal 
leader  told  me.  "They  give  time  and  money  to 
charity — more  than  their  share — and  they  don't 
shirk.  Naturally  they  have  their  Lord  Fitznoo- 
dles,  and  some  very  old  titles  are  held  by  some 
very  young  rakes.  But  there  are  able  Lords,  too, 
and  the  average  Peer  is  no  worse  than  the  aver- 
age Commoner." 

"Then  why—?"  I  began. 

"For  that  matter,  continued  the  Liberal  leader, 
"your  Virginian  slaveholder  was  a  gentleman,  and 
I  have  always  suspected  that  the  old  nobles  who 
were  guillotined  during  the  French  revolution 
were  not  much  worse  than  the  fellows  who  guillo- 
tined them.  It's  the  Lords'  political,  not  their  per- 
sonal character,  that  counts.  Politically,  they  are 
Conservatives,  and  always  have  been  and  always 
will  be  Conservatives.  When  the  Conservatives 
control  the  House  of  Commons,  the  Lords  have 
nothing  to  do,  and  go  quietly  to  sleep;  when  we 
Liberals  control  the  Commons,  the  Lords  wake 
up  and  reject  or  mutilate  all  our  bills.  If  the 
Lords  were  heaven-born  legislators — which  they 
are  not — we  should  still  be  against  them,  because 
we  cannot  have  a  real  party  system  or  any  ap- 

[  133] 


proach  to  a  democracy  so  long  as  a  permanent 
Conservative  majority  in  the  Lords  can  undo 
all  legislation.  Let  the  Lords  keep  their  veto, 
and  we  will  have  government  for  the  Conserva- 
tives by  the  Conservatives,  for  ever  and  ever." 

"But  why  are  they  Conservatives?"   I  asked. 

"Because,"  he  answered,  "they  own  everything 
worth  conserving." 

As  we  parted,  the  Liberal  discharged  a  final 
Parthian  shot.  "If  you  really  have  any  romantic 
illusions  about  the  noble  House  of  Lords,  look  up 
its  record." 

I  did  look  up  its  record.  I  studied  the  votes 
of  the  upper  chamber  from  the  year  1832,  when 
the  obstinate  Lords  passed  the  Reform  bill  only 
under  threat  of  a  violent  insurrection,  down  to 
their  last  obstructions  in  the  last  days  of  1910. 
During  all  these  years  the  Lords  seemed  to  wage 
one  long  Fabian  warfare  against  progress. 

Their  record  was  the  record  of  an  unrepresent- 
ative, hereditary  clique  of  a  selfish  caste,  willing 
to  sacrifice  the  masses  of  the  people  to  augment 
their  own  monopoly — a  monopoly  of  wealth,  land, 
social  prestige,  and  political  power.  When  I  had 
read  the  record  of  the  Peers,  I  repeated  approv- 
ingly the  accusing  question  of  Winston  Churchill, 
"Has  the  House  of  Lords  ever  been  right  in  any 
of  the  great  controversies  of  the  last  one  hundred 
years?" 

Not  every  one  whom  I  met  was  as  tolerant  of 
the  Lords  as  was  the  Liberal  statesman  who  had 
found  the  Peers  "a  good  sort."  I  discovered  that 

[134] 


the  members  of  the  Labor  Party  in  Parliament 
were  in  favor  of  the  outright  extinguishment  of 
the  House  of  Lords;  for  its  destruction,  root  and 
branch.  Other  men  decried  the  upper  house  as 
a  ridiculous  and  barbarous  anachronism;  as  a  sort 
of  political  vermiform  appendix;  as  a  stupid,  self- 
satisfied,  egoistic,  plutocratic,  reactionary  and  un- 
improvable oligarchy. 

In  Hyde  Park,  which  is  a  grass-covered  forum 
where  any  man  may  give  expression  to  any  views, 
I  came  across  an  impassioned  and  intolerant  an- 
tagonist of  the  Lords.  He  was  an  old,  tall,  sal- 
low, ascetic-looking  orator,  a  man  of  one  idea  and 
one  purpose.  To  a  changing  crowd  of  curious 
auditors,  he  inveighed — with  a  rude,  ungrammat- 
ical  eloquence — against  the  Lords  collectively  and 
individually.  He  went  into  the  moldy  records  of 
the  great  titled  families — the  Russells,  the  How- 
ards, the  Digbys,  the  Seymours,  the  Cavendishes, 
the  Villiers,  the  Wellesleys — waxing  indignant 
over  scandals  half  a  millennium  old.  He  was  like 
a  modern  Cato  proclaiming,  "Carthage  must  be 
destroyed  1" 

In  the  eyes  of  this  old  man,  the  whole  history 
of  the  Lords  from  the  I5th  century,  when  the 
turbulent  Peers  came  to  Parliament  with  enor- 
mous retinues  armed  to  the  teeth,  down  to  the 
present  humdrum  day,  was  one  long  record  of  a 
betrayal  of  England.  The  Lords,  he  admitted, 
had  gained  some  of  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent, 
but  had  acquired  none  of  the  innocence  of  the 
dove.  They  had  grown  cautious  as  the  people 

[135] 


had  grown  strong,  but  they  had  learned  nothing 
and  forgotten  nothing.  Obdurate  though  tim- 
orous, retreating  yet  resisting,  they  had  set  their 
faces  against  the  light.  They  had  often  lacked 
the  courage  of  their  greed  and  pride,  and  had  con- 
ceded much  to  fear  but  nothing  to  justice.  They 
had  always  fought  for  their  rights,  their  privileges, 
their  aggressions.  They  had  fought  against  free, 
untrammeled  education.  They  had  fought  against 
religious  liberty,  against  equal  rights  to  Noncon- 
formists, Catholics,  Jews.  They  had  sought  to 
debar  free  churchmen  from  the  universities.  They 
had  held  down  the  brave  Irish  people,  and  had 
been  as  cruel  to  them  as  the  famine.  They  had 
kept  a  heavy  hand  upon  the  agricultural  laborer. 
They  had  confiscated  the  lands  of  England.  They 
had  turned  farms  into  hunting  preserves.  They 
had  girdled  growing  villages  with  hedges  and 
walls.  They  had  locked  up  the  minds  of  the  vil- 
lagers. They  had  been  everywhere  the  enemies 
of  democratic  progress  and  everywhere  the  friends 
of  political  reaction.  They  had  held  the  lands  of 
the  city.  They  had  debauched  the  population 
through  an  unholy  alliance  with  the  brewers; 
with  the  great,  opulent,  titled  liquor-lords.  Eng- 
land and  Scotland,  Ireland,  Wales  and  the  Em- 
pire; the  land,  the  towns,  the  army,  the  navy,  the 
church,  the  universities,  had  been  one  great  hunt- 
ing preserve,  a  place  for  younger  sons,  an  ap- 
panage of  wealthy  Lords  and  their  wealthy  allies. 
They  had  remained  wealthy  by  adopting  men  of 
wealth;  by  a  cooption  which  enlisted  the  newly- 


made  millionaire  on  the  side  of  the  Tudor  noble; 
by  international  marriage,  which  diverted  Ameri- 
can fortunes  into  an  already  huge  reservoir  of 
wealth.  They  had  held  all  the  keys  to  social  rec- 
ognition and  had  remained  immured  in  their  noble 
prejudices  while,  outside,  the  masses  of  the  Brit- 
ish people,  laboring  under  this  aristocratic  incu- 
bus, fought  rather  stolidly  for  progress,  educa- 
tion, recognition;  and  on  the  streets  a  swelling, 
disregarded  army  of  unemployed  and  unemploy- 
ables  marched  ceaselessly,  sullenly,  dejectedly  un- 
der the  dull  street  lamps. 

One  stinging  phrase  of  the  old  Hyde  Park  ora- 
tor— a  phrase  which  I  later  learned  was  quoted 
from  the  Joseph  Chamberlain  of  radical  days — 
stuck  in  my  mind.  "The  House  of  Lords,"  he 
had  said,  "is  a  club  of  Tory  landlords." 

That,  as  I  was  soon  to  discover,  was  the  crux 
of  the  whole  matter.  The  Lords  are  landlords. 

The  people  of  England  are  shut  off  from  the 
land.  The  cities  are  congested,  the  towns  are 
cramped,  and  the  food  of  England  comes  from 
abroad,  while  the  Lords  of  England  "join  house 
to  house,  lay  field  to  field,  till  there  be  no  place, 
that  they  may  be  placed  alone  in  the  midst  of  the 
earth." 

Five  hundred  and  twenty-five  Peers  own  one- 
fifth  of  the  land  of  England. 

England  is  a  crowded  country.  There  is  only 
a  fraction  over  one  acre  to  each  man,  woman 
and  child.  But  the  Dukes  average  142,564  acres 
each;  the  Marquesses  average  47,500  acres;  the 

[137] 


Earls,  30,217  acres;  the  Barons,  14,152  acres; 
while  his  Grace,  the  Duke  of  Sutherland,  contents 
himself  with  1,358,000  acres,  the  landed  patri- 
mony of  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  England's  fam- 
ilies. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  Lords  are  the  centre  of 
a  still  more  extended  landed  oligarchy.  There 
are  seven  million  families  in  England.  Of  these 
fewer  than  ten  thousand  own  four-fifths  of  the 
land. 

The  hereditary  Lords  of  England  have  used 
their  privileges  as  legislators  to  evade  their  du- 
ties as  landlords.  They  have  fostered  the  growth 
of  a  land  monopoly.  They  have  upheld  the  law 
of  primogeniture  (under  which  the  eldest  son  be- 
comes the  sole  heir),  and  they  have  fought  every 
other  proposal  to  bring  equality  and  democracy 
into  the  country  districts.  The  Lords  of  Eng- 
land, when  not  absentee  landlords,  are  usually 
kindly  in  whatever  personal  relations  they  have 
with  their  farmers  and  laborers.  But  the  labor- 
ers vote  as  the  Lord  votes,  and  men  of  inde- 
pendent judgment  may  not  only  lose  their  jobs 
but  be  evicted  as  well  from  my  Lord's  crowded 
cottages. 

The  noblesse  oblige  of  the  Lords  has  not  had 
the  effect  of  making  the  agricultural  population 
either  prosperous  or  contented.  The  wages  of 
farm  laborers  (including  the  value  of  all  allow- 
ances) amount  in  England  to  only  four  dollars 
and  a  half  a  week  and  to  only  two  dollars  and 
seventy-five  cents  a  week  in  Ireland. 


"The  agricultural  laborers  as  a  class"  (so  I 
read  in  the  report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on 
Labor)  "earn  only  a  bare  subsistence,  and  the 
great  majority  of  them  are  in  a  chronic  state  of 
poverty  and  anxiety." 

The  wretchedness  of  the  Peer-ridden  country 
districts  sends  surplus  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
unemployed  men  to  swell  the  wretchedness  of  the 
cities.  Simultaneously  the  landlords — many  of 
them  great  Peers — receive  a  rent  on  all  this  pov- 
erty of  over  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  an- 
nually. From  their  immense  holdings  of  city 
lands,  individual  Lords  receive  other  tens  of  mil- 
lions annually. 

It  was  through  their  tender  solicitude  for  these 
huge  rents  that  the  Lords  were  brought  to  their 
present  perilous  pass.  From  1906  to  1909,  the 
Liberal  majority  carried  reform  after  reform 
through  the  House  of  Commons — an  Education 
bill,  a  Scottish  Land  bill,  a  Land  Valuation  bill, 
a  Liquor  Licensing  bill,  a  bill  against  Plural  Vot- 
ing— only  to  have  them  defeated  one  after  an- 
other by  the  House  of  Lords.  Then  in  1909  a 
Budget  was  introduced  which  the  Lords  believed 
to  be  inimical  to  them  as  landlords;  in  other 
words,  in  their  private  capacity.  Whereupon  the 
Peers,  to  the  dismay  of  their  best  friends,  re- 
jected the  Budget.  In  an  attempt  to  evade  taxa- 
ion,  the  Lords  imperiled  the  future  of  their 
House. 

It  is  difficult  for  an  American  to  understand 
offhand  why  this  action  of  the  Peers  was  so  revo- 

[  139] 


lutionary,  for  everyone  acknowledges  that  the 
Lords  had  a  perfect  legal  right  to  do  what  they  did. 

But  in  England  an  action  may  be  legal  and 
at  the  same  time  unconstitutional.  Legally  the 
King  has  the  right  to  reject  any  bill.  For  over 
two  hundred  years,  however,  no  King  of  England 
has  vetoed  any  law,  however  repugnant,  with  the 
result  that  constitutionally  the  sovereign  has 
ceased  to  have  the  power.  The  royal  veto  has 
oozed. 

If  to-day  the  King  were  to  exercise  this  un- 
doubted legal  right,  he  might  cease  to  be  King 
to-morrow. 

Similarly  the  Lords  are  considered  to  have 
lost  any  constitutional  right  which  they  may  have 
ever  possessed,  to  initiate,  amend  or  reject  finan- 
cial bills.  As  long  ago  as  1671,  the  House  of 
Commons  asserted  its  exclusive  jurisdiction  over 
"all  aids  given  to  the  King,"  and  in  1678,  to  make 
its  meaning  clearer,  the  Commons  added  that  "it 
is  the  undoubted  and  sole  right  of  the  Commons 
to  direct,  limit,  and  appoint  in  such  bills  the  ends, 
purposes,  considerations,  conditions,  limitations, 
and  qualifications  of  such  grants,  which  ought  not 
to  be  changed  or  altered  by  the  House  of  Lords." 

In  1860,  the  House  of  Commons  again  asserted 
its  exclusive  right  as  to  "the  matter,  manner, 
measure,  and  time."  The  King  asks  funds  of  the 
Commons,  not  of  the  Lords,  and  at  the  end  of 
the  session  it  is  solely  "the  gentlemen  of  the  House 
of  Commons"  to  whom  he  says,  "I  have  to  thank 
you  for  the  generous  supply  you  have  given  me." 

[  HO] 


If  the  Lords  possessed  a  veto  over  finance  they 
could  at  will  upset  any  government  by  the  simple 
expedient  of  withholding  supplies. 

The  wiser  Peers,  among  them  Lord  Cromer, 
Lord  Balfour  of  Burleigh  and  Lord  James  of 
Hereford,  solemnly  warned  the  upper  chamber 
against  the  "formidable  risks  which  would  be  in- 
volved" in  any  rejection  of  the  Budget. 

"You  should  think  once,"  warned  Lord  Rose- 
bery,  "you  should  think  twice  and  thrice,  before 
you  give  a  vote  which  may  involve  such  enor- 
mous constitutional  consequences." 

Unfortunately,  there  were  present  a  good  many 
"wild  Lords"  and  "backwoodsmen"  (Peers  who 
ordinarily  do  not  attend  because  they  have  neither 
the  talents  nor  the  inclination),  and  when  the 
vote  was  taken  on  the  fatal  3Oth  of  November, 
the  Budget  was  overwhelmingly  and  contemptu- 
ously rejected. 

The  Lords,  to  protect  their  own  estates,  com- 
mitted an  arbitrary  and  unprecedented  breach  of 
the  unwritten  Constitution. 

Whereupon  the  Ministry,  which  had  now  found 
its  clearly-defined  issue,  quite  logically  resigned. 
New  elections  were  ordered  for  January,  1910, 
and  these  resulted  in  a  new  victory  for  the  Gov- 
ernment. After  reading  the  election  returns,  the 
Lords  quickly  and  unostentatiously  passed  the  ob- 
jectionable Budget. 

The  Liberal  Government,  supported  by  the 
Labor  and  Irish  members,  now  decided  to  end 
the  obstruction  of  the  Lords  once  for  all,  and 

[HI] 


resolutions  were  carried  through  the  Commons 
embodying  the  principles  of  the  present  Parlia- 
ment bill.  The  Lords  opposed  these  resolutions 
with  counter-resolutions.  They  were  willing,  they 
claimed,  to  reform  themselves.  They  were  will- 
ing to  limit  the  hereditary  principle.  They  were 
willing  to  devise  some  plan  of  referendum.  But 
they  were  not  willing  to  limit  their  veto,  nor  so 
to  change  the  Constitution  of  their  House  as  to 
give  the  Liberals  an  even  chance  of  supremacy. 

The  sudden  death  of  King  Edward  mollified 
for  a  time  all  political  antagonisms,  and  a  con- 
ference of  Lords  and  Commons,  of  Conservatives 
and  Liberals,  attempted  to  reach  some  compro- 
mise. The  conference  failed.  The  two  parties 
were  again  in  an  impasse. 

Again  elections  were  ordered,  and  in  Decem- 
ber, 1910,  for  the  third  time,  the  Liberal,  Labor 
and  Irish  majority  was  sustained.  On  February 
6th,  the  Parliament  bill  was  introduced  into  the 
Commons.  It  triumphantly  passed  its  first  and 
second  readings,  and  it  is  expected  that  during 
this  month  the  bill  will  pass  its  third  reading  with 
a  majority  of  over  one  hundred.  From  the  Com- 
mons the  bill  goes  to  the  Lords  to  be  accepted  or 
rejected. 

As  the  crisis  draws  nearer,  men  on  both  sides 
anxiously  seek  to  gauge  the  eddies,  currents  and 
tides  of  public  opinion.  So  far  there  seems  to 
be  no  change.  In  the  by-elections,  honors  have 
been  equal.  There  is  lethargy  in  some  districts 
and  loyalty  to  the  Lords  in  others,  but  in  the  most 


unexpected  quarters  one  discovers  an  intense  de- 
sire to  fight  the  battle  out  now,  even  if  it  takes 
all  summer,  even  if  it  spoils  the  Royal  Coronation. 

It  seemed  to  me,  as  I  talked  the  matter  over 
with  men  of  different  minds,  that  this  desire  to 
effect  a  speedy  change  was  shared  by  many  be- 
sides members  of  Parliament.  I  found  every- 
where groups  with  reforms  to  urge,  which  waited 
upon  the  removal  of  the  obstructionist  Lords. 

I  found  the  Irish  counting  the  days  until  the 
Veto  bill  would  open  the  door  to  a  near  victory 
for  Irish  autonomy.  The  Welsh  demand  for 
church  dis-establishment,  the  claims  of  working- 
men  for  improved  labor  legislation,  the  desired 
abolition  of  plural  voting  (under  which  system 
one  man  may  vote  in  all  electoral  districts  in 
which  he  owns  property) — all  these,  and  other 
programmes,  were  in  abeyance. 

Vast  projects  of  social  reform  were  being  care- 
fully formulated.  There  were  plans  to  insure 
the  working  population  against  sickness  and  un- 
employment; to  reform  the  crudities  and  cruelties 
of  the  absurd  poor  law;  to  modernize  the  educa- 
tional system;  to  loosen  the  hold  of  a  great  liquor 
monopoly;  to  improve  the  administration  of  city 
and  county  governments;  to  adjust  the  financial 
relations  of  national  and  local  authorities.  Against 
the  obstruction  of  the  House  of  Lords  was  ar- 
rayed a  mass  of  progressive  sentiment,  pervasive 
and  overwhelming. 

The  reconstruction  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land waited  upon  the  abolition  of  the  Lords'  veto. 

[143] 


"It  is  high  time,"  a  Radical  statesman  told 
me.  "Other  nations  are  passing  us.  They  have 
better  ^education),  better  social  legislation,  and 
much  better  economic  arrangements.  We  build 
Dreadnoughts  and  enroll  a  territorial  army,  but 
you  can't  make  soldiers — or  workmen  either — out. 
of  starved  children  or  the  emaciated  wretches  you 
can  see  on  any  street.  In  pounds  and  shillings 
we  are  the  richest  country  in  Europe,  but  in 
national  efficiency  other  countries  are  ahead — and 
will  remain  ahead  until  we  get  our  other  hand 
free.  When  we  get  our  other  hand  free,  we'll 
be  a  match  for  other  nations." 

He  did  not  specify  what  nation  he  meant.  He 
did  not  need  to.  England  to-day  is  uneasy  about 
Germany.  She  is  disquieted  by  the  thought  of 
German  soldiers,  German  sailors,  German  work- 
men, merchants,  statesmen.  England  is  looking 
to  her  defenses.  She  believes  her  navy  to  be  as 
invincible  as  ever,  and  her  people  as  loyal.  But 
no  longer  is  England  so  confident  of  the  morale 
of  her  millions ;  of  their  intelligence,  capacity,  and 
staying  power;  of  their  ability  to  withstand  the 
strain  of  a  hundred  years'  industrial  war.  She 
is  beginning  to  fear  that  to  enter  upon  some  fu- 
ture war,  with  millions  upon  the  edge  of  destitu- 
tion, is  to  court  disaster;  perhaps  imperial  disin- 
tegration; perhaps,  even,  national  extinction. 
England,  in  her  perilously  exposed  position,  is 
afraid.  And  back  of  this  dread  lies  another 
dread — the  haunting,  fugitive  fear  of  the  wretches 
of  slum  and  gutter. 

[  I44J 


What  if  they  should! 

In  a  very  real  sense  it  is  the  Pauper  who  has 
toppled  over  the  Peer.  The  naked,  dirt-caked 
arm  of  the  superfluous  wretch  is  pointing  the  way 
that  England  must  go,  and  that  way  leads  straight 
over  the  House  of  Lords;  over  its  vested  inter- 
ests, its  prejudices,  its  ignorances,  its  tenacious 
obstructions.  To  the  doors  of  the  House  of 
Lords  comes  a  pitiable,  motley  army  of  half-edu- 
cated, half-fed,  obscurely  miserable  men  and 
women,  graduates  of  the  farcical  free  schools  of 
their  day;  children  of  child  laborers,  aspirants 
for  the  barbarous,  tragically  absurd  workhouses. 
Strong  men  come  crying  for  work,  and  the  Lords 
have  no  answer.  They  are  good  enough  men, 
kindly  enough  and  sincere.  But  they  are  shut 
up  in  the  narrow  knowledge  of  their  "order"  and 
they  can  not  see  an  England  beyond  the  gates  of 
their  parks. 

The  Lords  have  no  answer.  Because  they 
have  no  answer,  the  Lords  must  go. 

Will  they  go?  The  bill  to  restrict  their  power 
can  not  become  law  until  they  themselves  accept 
it.  Will  the  Lords  commit  political  hari-kari? 

No  one  can  tell.  At  the  last  moment  there 
may  be  a  proverbial  slip  'twixt  cup  and  lip; 
there  may  come  a  sudden  veering  of  the  wind  of 
popular  favor,  a  patched-up  compromise  on  the 
basis  of  a  self-reform  of  the  Lords.  For  the 
last  few  weeks  the  Peers  have  been  trying  to 
agree  upon  a  plan.  They  have  sought  to  hang 
together  to  avoid  hanging  separately.  They  wish 

[145] 


now  to  reform  themselves — that  is,  the  minority 
does,  and  that  by  the  simple  expedient  of  un- 
seating the  majority.  But  the  majority — it  is 
whispered — seeks  no  self-immolation.  The  coun- 
try Peers  have  thrice  put  aside  the  crown  of  mar- 
tyrdom. The  House  of  Lords,  which  demands 
the  right  to  legislate  for  the  people  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  is  unable  to  agree  upon  its  own  re- 
construction. 

With  the  people  back  of  them,  the  Commons 
can  compel  the  Lords  to  accept  the  Veto  bill.  By 
one  of  those  delightfully  simple  expedients,  in 
which  the  English  Constitution  abounds,  the 
House  of  Lords  can  be  persuaded  to  commit  sui- 
cide in  self-defense. 

The  King  has  the  right  to  create  a  Peer.  The 
right  to  create  a  Peer  involves  the  right  to  create 
a  thousand  Peers,  successively  or  simultaneously. 
The  King  acts  upon  the  advice  of  his  prime  min- 
ister, who  expresses  the  will  of  the  Commons. 
At  the  word  of  the  prime  minister,  the  King  may 
create  five  hundred  Peers,  all  of  whom  will  come 
to  the  House  of  Lords,  pledged  to  vote  for  the 
Parliament  bill. 

Suppose,  however,  the  King  refuses?  It  is  his 
legal  right.  But  to  refuse  is  to  throw  the  mon- 
archy into  the  melting  pot.  The  King  of  Eng- 
land is  revered,  because  he  never  refuses. 

Thus  we  approach  the  twilight  of  the  Lords. 

If  the  Peers  accept  their  new  subordinate  role 

as  critics,  and  impartial  advisers  in  legislation, 

they  may  come  to  attain  a  moral,  and  an  indirect 

[146] 


political  influence,  if  not  greater,  at  least  more 
beneficent  than  their  present  power  of  interested 
obstruction.  If,  however,  the  Lords  protest,  they 
will  be  upon  the  horns  of  the  following  dilemma : 

Either  they  will  reluctantly  pass  the  Parlia- 
ment bill,  and,  having  given  their  assent,  will  be 
forever  barred  from  claiming  a  restoration  of 
their  veto. 

Or  they  will  withhold  their  assent  and  have  the 
bill  passed  over  their  heads  by  five  hundred  brand- 
new  Lords,  thus  losing  not  only  their  "absolute 
veto"  but  also  their  present  Conservative  major- 
ity, as  well  as  suffering  "socially"  through  a  dilu- 
tion of  their  order.  To  delay  the  blow  is  to  double 
its  impact. 

The  people  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  who 
have  been  cramped  and  confined  by  the  century- 
long  obstinacy  of  the  Lords ;  the  masses  who  have 
been  shut  off  from  the  land  and  exploited  in  the 
cities;  the  poor;  the  unemployed;  the  disinher- 
ited, who  are  poor  and  unemployed  and  disin- 
herited because  a  wealthy  and  noble  class  has 
monopolized  England — all  these  may  be  indiffer- 
ent as  to  the  manner  of  the  Lords'  going,  so  that 
they  go  at  once. 

To  the  Lords,  however,  the  choice,  though  be- 
tween two  evils,  is  between  two  unequal  evils. 
Unless  an  unexpected  reprieve  arrives  at  the  last 
hour,  the  old  absolute  veto  of  the  House  of  Lords 
must  either  die  by  its  own  hand  or  be  ignomini- 
ously  hanged  by  the  neck  until  it  is  dead. 

What  will  the  Lords  do? 

[147] 


THE  CONQUERING  CHINESE 


THE  CONQUERING  CHINESE 

IT  was  a  Chinese  official  at  Peking  who  first  gave 
me  the  sense  that  China  is  unconquerable  and  con- 
quering. 

I  had  gone  to  this  official  to  ask  certain  ques- 
tions concerning  political  affairs.  He  had  listened 
quietly  and  answered  with  seeming  frankness.  He 
had  no  illusions  concerning  the  present  situation. 
The  Chinese  Government  was  weak;  its  finance 
bad;  there  was  no  money  for  schools;  no  money 
for  anything.  Officials  were  corrupt,  and  repeated 
promises  of  reform  were  unfulfilled.  The  armies, 
under  the  leadership  of  semi-independent  generals, 
could  not  be  disbanded  because  they  had  not  been 
paid;  to  disband  them  would  convert  the  soldiers 
into  brigands.  The  internal  situation  was  serious. 

The  foreign  situation  was  even  worse.  Upon 
a  map  the  official  showed  me  how  Japan  was 
encircling  China.  She  held  Korea  and  southern 
Manchuria  and  from  Port  Arthur  and  Tsing-tao 
menaced  Peking.  She  had  Formosa,  claimed  spe- 
cial rights  in  Fu-kien  and  would  not  surrender 
Shantung  peninsula  unless  forced.  Step  by  step 
she  was  gaining  industrial  and  political  influence 
throughout  the  republic.  So  long  as  the  war 
lasted  Japan  would  have  a  free  hand;  in  case  of 
an  insurrection  she  could  land  troops,  with  the  con- 


sent  of  the  Powers,  and  once  her  armies  were  in 
China  it  would  be  hard  to  dislodge  them. 

All  this  he  told  me  without  any  display  of  agi- 
tation. His  voice  was  almost  uninflected  and  his 
speech  gestureless.  As  he  sat  at  his  desk  with 
his  long,  fine  hands  hidden  in  the  sleeves  of  his 
black  silk  Chinese  coat,  he  seemed  the  incarnation 
of  passivity.  It  required  a  violent  effort  to  realize 
that  this  immobile  and  imperturbable  Chinese  had 
spent  four  years  in  an  American  university,  per- 
haps had  rowed  with  the  crew  or  played  on  the 
baseball  team.  The  idea  seemed  incongruous. 
Despite  his  Western  knowledge,  his  mind  was 
tenaciously  Chinese.  He  was  detached,  imper- 
sonal, with  a  patient,  unhurried  mental  attitude, 
as  though  the  noisy  turmoil  of  centuries  did  not 
count  in  a  nation's  destiny. 

"If  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,"  he  con- 
cluded, "we  shall  invite  Japan  to  conquer  us." 

I  stared.  "Invite  Japan?  That  would  be  the 
end  of  China." 

He  smiled  indulgently.  "You  people  of  the 
West  are  so  impatient,  so — may  I  say? — imme- 
diate. You  think  in  years  instead  of  in  centuries. 
There  can  be  no  end  of  China. 

"What  can  the  conqueror,  as  we  call  him,  do? 
He  can  make  money  out  of  us  and  for  us,  and 
he  can  rule  us — for  a  time ;  but  he  cannot  absorb 
us  and  we  can  and  will  absorb  him.  I  would  give 
the  Japanese  just  fifty  years  of  control;  then  they 
would  go  the  way  of  the  Manchus." 

He  went  into  details.     He  portrayed  a  new 


China  growing  up  vigorously  under  its  supposed 
Japanese  masters.  He  assumed  that  under  the 
foreign  rule  the  Chinese  would  get  railroads,  tel- 
egraphs, factories,  schools,  and  universities,  and 
would  become  a  wealthy  and  intelligent  nation. 
Every  effort  of  Japan  to  exploit  China  would  aid 
China,  and  though  the  seat  of  empire  might  be 
at  Tokio,  the  real  administrators,  the  tens  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  subordinate  officials, 
would  be  Chinese.  Officer  the  army  with  Jap- 
anese and  it  would  still  be  a  Chinese  army.  The 
real  power  would  remain  with  the  Chinese  people. 
And  in  the  end,  in  twenty,  fifty,  or  at  most  a  hun- 
dred or  two  hundred  years,  the  people  would 
exercise  this  power  and  the  fragile  Japanese  dom- 
ination would  be  shattered.  The  day  of  little 
nations,  he  intimated,  is  over;  the  great  masses 
learn  quickly  and  all  the  tricks  of  organization  and 
discipline  and  science  can  no  longer  be  monopo- 
lized by  any  one  people.  Perhaps  the  Chinese  by 
themselves  would  throw  off  the  yoke ;  perhaps  they 
would  wait  until  Japan  was  embroiled  with  an- 
other nation ;  perhaps  they  would  wait  even  longer 
until  the  sated  foreigners,  by  sheer  pressure  from 
the  population  around  them,  became  Chinese,  as 
the  Normans  became  English.  In  the  end  it 
would  be  the  same,  the  little  island  folk  would 
succumb  to  the  continental  people.  And  the  same 
if  Europe  were  ever  to  divide  China.  Jealousies, 
boundary  disputes,  wars  between  these  hasty  na- 
tions— and  in  the  quiet  fullness  of  time  China, 
educated  and  drilled,  would  come  into  her  own 

[153] 


again.  Either  she  would  drive  out  the  invaders 
or  they  would  drive  one  another  off,  as  Japan 
drove  out  Russia  and  Germany. 

"No,"  he  declared,  "China  may  be  overrun, 
but  in  the  end  will  be  triumphant.  We  are  no 
doubt  the  weakest  and  most  unpolitical  of  nation*, 
but  we  are  unconquerable." 

As  I  left  the  office  and  found  myself  again 
upon  the  thronged  Peking  streets,  it  seemed  as 
though  these  swarms  of  blue-clad  Chinese  had 
taken  on  a  new  significance.  Everywhere  were 
men  in  silk  and  cotton,  with  long  skirts  and  cere- 
monial skull-cap,  or  dressed  in  tight-fitting  cotton 
garments.  The  winter  sunlight  poured  upon  an 
endless  stream  of  ragged  'rickshaw-men,  panting 
hard  as  they  ran  at  a  dog-trot  which  they  could 
maintain  for  hours.  Coolies  passed  under  their 
great  loads;  the  carters  were  drawing  stone  upon 
the  springless  Peking  carts.  There  followed  men 
leading  asses  and  camels,  and  then  more  coolies 
carrying  on  their  shoulders  the  city's  human  refuse 
that,  like  all  things  in  China,  is  sedulously 
hoarded.  There  were  thousands  and  thousands 
of  these  common  Chinese  folk,  and  beyond,  in 
the  republic's  eighteen  provinces,  hundreds  of  mil- 
lions of  them.  The  street  was  one  vast  hive  of 
crowding  men.  It  was  an  ugly,  sordid,  malodor- 
ous life  that  it  revealed,  but  a  life  that  endures. 

These  Chinese,  I  thought,  have  the  viability 
of  rats.  Wretched,  laughing,  philosophical,  they 
withstand  heat  and  cold,  dwell  in  the  tropics  or 
in  the  frigid  zone,  perform  labor  that  no  white 

[154] 


man  would  undertake,  live  on  food  upon  which 
a  white  man  would  starve.  A  comfortless  race, 
not  despising  comfort,  but  ignorant  of  what  it  is. 
Living  on  a  bowl  of  rice  and  a  morsel  of  fish, 
sleeping  on  a  cold  dirt  floor  or  at  best  on  a  brick 
oven  with  a  straw  mattress  for  a  bed  and  a 
wooden  block  for  a  pillow,  living  amid  dirt  and 
vermin  and  intolerable  stenches,  these  people  have 
reached  the  irreducible  minimum  of  physical  ex- 
istence. Perfect  machines,  devised  to  give  a  max- 
imum energy  at  a  minimum  cost. 

Because  its  scale  of  living  is  low  and  because 
it  is  fruitful,  the  Chinese  nation  is  indeed  inde- 
structible. You  cannot  remove  this  population 
or  exterminate  it  or  even  lessen  it.  Scourge  it 
with  famines,  pestilences,  and  wars,  like  that 
Taiping  rebellion  which  destroyed  ten  to  twenty 
millions,  and  in  the  end  the  population  is  greater 
than  before.  The  procreative  impulse  rules 
China  as  the  Manchus  never  ruled  it.  Three  out 
of  four  babies  die,  but  the  fourth  is  more  than 
enough.  Kill  a  hundred  million  Chinese  and  in 
two  generations  there  are  more  graves  cluttering 
the  earth,  but  as  many  living  as  ever.  The  prin- 
cipal product  of  China  is  cheap,  rice-fed  men, 
who  work  and  starve,  or  perhaps  freeze  to  death 
during  the  cold  January  nights,  or  die  by  the  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  in  periodical  famines,  or  ob- 
stinately survive  and  raise  more  cheap,  rice-fed 
men.  There  are  hundreds  of  millions  of  them 
with  vision  bounded  by  a  bowl  of  rice  and  the 
desire  for  male  offspring.  The  race  is  like  the 

[155] 


sea,  inexhaustible,  imperishable.  It  does  not 
wither  away  at  the  breath  of  Western  civiliza- 
tion. It  does  not  disappear.  It  does  not  go 
under.  It  persists. 

It  is,  moreover,  an  impermeable  race;  to  at- 
tempt to  interpenetrate  it  is  as  hopeless  as  to  pour 
water  into  a  jar  filled  with  mercury.  I  thought 
of  Macao.  The  Portuguese  have  been  there  for 
over  three  centuries  and  have  contrived  to  make 
of  it  a  beautiful  city,  living  on  opium,  gambling, 
and  other  vices,  like  a  pretty  prostitute  in  pink 
ribbons.  The  picturesque  streets  have  Portu- 
guese names,  but  the  city  is  irredeemably,  un- 
alterably Chinese.  Look  down  from  the  green- 
clad  hills  upon  the  flat  roofs,  blue  and  green  and 
red,  of  the  clustered,  wind-swept  city,  and  you 
see  the  homes  not  of  Portuguese,  but  of  Orientals. 
Of  a  population  of  seventy-five  thousand,  only 
a  scant  two  thousand  claim  a  dubious  Portuguese 
origin. 

The  same  is  true  of  Hongkong,  with  its  British 
bund  and  its  foreign  banks  and  its  few  thousand 
white-faced  men  surrounded  by  swarming  Chi- 
nese. In  the  Hongkong  city  of  Victoria,  which 
is  a  narrow  strip  between  the  granite  hills  and 
the  bay,  the  wealthy  white  inhabitants  are  forced 
upward  on  to  the  terraced  hillsides,  where  their 
charming  semi-tropical  gardens  look  out  upon  the 
blue  water,  while  below,  on  the  narrow  plain,  in- 
undation after  inundation  of  Chinese  fills  the  city 
to  the  saturation  point.  There  are  districts  in  the 
city — Chinese  districts,  of  course — where  the  pop- 

[156] 


ulation  averages  over  640,000  to  the  square  mile, 
and  the  crowding  tends  to  become  worse.  It  is 
a  Chinese  city.  So,  too,  Tientsin,  Shanghai,  Han- 
kow, though  they  have  their  foreign  concessions, 
small  European  islands  in  an  Asiatic  ocean,  are 
in  population  unmistakably  Chinese.  The  white 
man  comes  and  goes;  he  lives  on  the  surface  of 
China  as  a  flea  might  live  upon  the  hide  of  a 
rhinoceros.  The  Chinese  remain,  breed,  multiply. 
Nor  have  the  Japanese  been  much  more  suc- 
cessful in  interpenetrating  China.  Japan  lies  near 
and  she  has  swarming  millions  of  hardy,  indus- 
trious, intelligent  men  accustomed  to  poverty  and 
almost  forced  to  emigrate.  Yet  in  the  whole  of 
China  there  is  only  a  scant  one  hundred  and 
twenty  thousand  Japanese  of  all  sorts,  or  about 
one  to  every  three  thousand  Chinese.  The  Jap- 
anese, following  in  the  footsteps  of  the  Russians, 
developed  southern  Manchuria,  and  opened  it  to 
immigration,  but  it  was  the  Chinese,  not  the  Jap- 
anese, who  immigrated.  By  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands they  poured  from  the  northern  provinces 
by  land  and  sea  into  Manchuria,  began  to  culti- 
vate the  profitable  soya  bean  and  to  prosper  under 
the  new  conditions  brought  about  by  Japan.  The 
Japanese  themselves  strove  to  colonize  this  rich 
territory.  They,  too,  have  their  population  prob- 
lem, their  over-dense  crowds.  Their  workmen 
and  little  shopkeepers  went  to  Mukden.  They 
worked  hard;  they  scrimped.  But  year  by  year, 
although  the  Japanese  immigration  increased, 
Japanese  were  forced  out  because  they  could  not 


compete,  and  year  by  year  the  Chinese  immigra- 
tion swamped  the  country.  The  Japanese  shop- 
keepers found  it  hard  to  do  business,  to  make 
both  ends  meet;  the  Japanese  wage-earners,  ex- 
cept in  the  more  skilled  trades,  found  it  difficult 
to  get  jobs.  The  water  could  not  displace  the 
mercury. 

So  China  endures,  indestructible,  impermeable. 
Foreign  adventurers  come  with  blazon  of  trum- 
pets, conquer,  and  are  conquered.  They,  their 
armies  and  camp-followers,  drop  into  the  vast 
sea  of  the  Chinese  population  and  are  submerged. 

In  the  meanwhile  China  expands,  steadily,  con- 
tinuously, overwhelmingly.  It  is  no  new  phe- 
nomenon. From  the  beginning  the  Chinese  have 
gradually  spread  over  their  present  vast  terri- 
tory, including  not  only  the  eighteen  provinces, 
in  which  is  massed  the  immense  majority  of  the 
population,  but  also  over  the  great  wastes  of 
Mongolia,  Manchuria,  eastern  Turkestan,  and 
Tibet.  The  Manchurian  immigration  illustrates 
this  process.  For  a  long  time  the  Manchus  held 
their  own  and  resisted  all  invasion.  Within  re- 
cent periods,  however,  the  Chinese  entered  in  vast 
numbers,  until  they  formed  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  population,  and  they  largely  ab- 
sorbed the  minority  by  intermarriage.  The  pure- 
blooded  Manchus  are  becoming  rare;  the  country, 
race,  and  civilization  are  Chinese.  Here,  as  also 
in  Formosa,  and  indeed  everywhere,  the  Chinese 
have  met  with  hopelessly  inferior  cultures,  and 
they  have  steadily  expanded  and  conquered. 


This  emigration  never  was,  and  is  not  to-day, 
a  spontaneous,  joyous  movement.  The  Chinese, 
if  one  may  generalize  concerning  so  immense  and 
diverse  a  people,  is  essentially  a  stay-at-home. 
He  is  not  like  the  restless  American  pioneer  who 
drove  his  Conestoga  wagon  over  the  Appalach- 
ians and  sold  his  cleared  land  as  soon  as  over- 
taken by  neighbors.  The  Chinese  coolie  is  at- 
tached to  his  home,  his  family,  his  birthplace. 
He  loves  his  ugly  walled  town  or  his  austere  and 
filthy  village,  his  broken-down,  cheerless  mud  hut, 
with  its  smoke-blackened  walls,  its  gaping  win- 
dow-holes, its  mud  floor  upon  which  pigs  and 
fowls  and  children  forgather,  its  unsuspected  ab- 
sence of  everything  we  consider  essential — car- 
pets, wall-paper,  furniture,  ornaments,  books, 
pictures,  games,  flowers.  His  religion  attaches 
him  to  the  place  where  his  ancestors  died  and 
where  he  wishes  his  children's  children's  children 
to  be  reared.  Even  the  beggars,  deformed,  tat- 
tered, and  starving,  cling  desperately  and  lovingly 
to  their  birthplace.  The  Chinese  coolies,  who 
are  to-day  being  brought  over  by  tens  of  thou- 
sands to  till  the  lands  of  France  and  release 
French  peasants  for  the  trenches,  have  no  real 
ambition  to  leave  China.  If  they  die  en  route  or 
in  France,  so  it  is  stipulated  in  their  bond  of 
service,  their  bodies  are  to  be  returned  to  their 
homes  in  China. 

Nothing  but  a  dead,  insistent,  omnipresent  pov- 
erty could  force  the  Chinese  to  emigrate.  It  is 
a  poverty  everywhere  found  in  China,  in  the  north 

[159] 


and  south  and  east  and  west,  in  the  mud  villages 
on  the  plains,  in  the  farming  districts  in  the  moun- 
tains, where  generations  of  laborers  have  hewn 
petty  farms  out  of  the  steeply  sloping  hills  and 
in  congested,  one-storied  cities  like  Canton,  where 
the  house  walls  almost  meet  over  the  narrow, 
sweaty  streets,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  are 
pushed  off  the  land  to  live  in  river  junks.  It  is 
a  poverty  caused  by  a  low  stage  of  industrial  de- 
velopment and  by  an  over-high  birth-rate,  a  pov- 
erty which  creates  superfluous  men,  who  toil  at 
carrying  water,  at  pulling  loads,  at  lifting  weights, 
at  all  forms  of  semi-useless  labor  for  a  wage 
which  barely  buys  millet  or  rice.  It  is  a  poverty 
which  keeps  millions  semi-employed  and  millions 
unemployed. 

Not  all  these  superfluous  Chinese  emigrate; 
only  the  smallest  fraction  of  them  have  as  yet 
gone  through  that  door.  Chinese  emigration,  ex- 
cept into  Manchuria  and  Asiatic  Russia,  still 
comes  overwhelmingly  from  a  few  southern  mari- 
time provinces.  It  is  the  mobile,  alert  Cantonese 
whom  we  find  in  San  Francisco  or  New  York; 
the  coolies  of  the  north,  the  west  and  the  middle 
provinces  are  rarely  met  overseas.  Yet  China 
has  sent  some  eight  to  ten  million  sons  to  foreign 
lands. 

In  the  United  States  there  are  still  almost  a 
hundred  thousand  Chinese,  and  but  for  the  fact 
that  their  coming  was  prohibited  there  would  be 
to-day  millions  of  them.  All  along  the  east  Pa- 
cific, in  Alaska,  British  Columbia,  Mexico,  Ecua- 
[160] 


dor,  Peru,  and  Chile,  there  are  colonies  of  Chi- 
nese. They  are  also  found  on  the  other  side  of 
the  American  continent,  in  British  Guiana,  Trini- 
dad, Jamaica,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico.  Of  the  Ha- 
waiian population  they  formed  in  the  year  1896 
one-fifth;  but,  as  in  the  Philippines,  their  num- 
bers have  been  relatively  reduced  by  the  Chinese 
Exclusion  Act.  A  similar  obstacle  meets  them  in 
Australia  and  British  South  Africa.  Still,  in  both 
these  regions  they  have  secured  a  slender  foot- 
hold. 

It  is  in  the  countries  surrounding  China,  how- 
ever, especially  in  the  fertile  lands  to  the  south, 
that  the  Chinese  carries  himself,  and  in  the  end 
his  language  and  civilization.  In  Burma,  An- 
nam,  Siam,  the  Malay  Peninsula,  in  Java  and 
other  Malaysian  islands,  he  comes  and  conquers. 
Over  the  indolent  Cambodian,  the  apathetic  Bur- 
mese, the  easy-going,  pleasure-loving  Malays  of 
all  sorts,  he  gains  a  victory.  He  is  an  excellent 
farmer,  mechanic,  sailor,  miner,  laborer;  he  is 
sober,  thrifty,  docile,  immensely  enduring,  and  an 
unloyal  observer  of  the  peace.  The  Chinese  im- 
migrant, schooled  to  an  abject  poverty,  arrives  in 
these  fertile  lands  empty-handed,  ragged,  without 
any  captial  except  his  willingness  to  work.  He 
comes  without  the  encumbrance  of  wife  or  chil- 
dren, who  in  any  case  belong  to  the  ancestral 
home,  to  which  he  himself  hopes  eventually  to 
return.  Having  nothing,  the  emigrant  binds  him- 
self by  a  harsh  contract  to  work  for  a  wealthier 
fellow-countryman  in  the  new  land.  He  saves 
[161] 


something  above  the  cost  of  his  daily  rice;  he 
does  not  lose  the  whole  of  his  belongings  at  the 
gambling  table.  Gradually  he  becomes  a  small 
capitalist.  He  buys  land  and  raises  gambier  and 
pepper.  Or  he  becomes  a  miner,  or  a  shopkeeper 
and  usurer,  holding  the  native  population  under 
his  sway.  Year  by  year  his  numbers  increase,  his 
control  grows.  He  thrives  upon  law  and  order, 
whether  it  be  British,  Japanese,  or  Siamese.  He 
gains  his  foothold.  He  opens  the  door  to  his 
countrymen  at  home. 

One  cannot  gauge  this  vast  expansion  without 
the  use  of  statistics,  and  for  the  most  part  the 
statistics  at  our  disposal  are  vague  and  conflict- 
ing. Orientals  abhor  exact  figures  far  more  than 
nature  ever  abhorred  a  vacuum.  Some  estimates 
place  the  number  of  Chinese  in  Siam  at  400,000; 
others  at  1,500,000;  between  these  extremes  one 
has  a  wide  liberty  of  choice.  In  Burma  there  are 
supposed  to  be  40,000,  many  of  whom  have  taken 
Burmese  wives,  without  even  consulting  their 
wives  at  home.  In  Cochin-China  there  are  some 
60,000  of  these  immigrants,  and  of  the  city  of 
Saigon  almost  one-third  is  Chinese.  In  Siam,  as 
elsewhere,  the  Chinese,  although  scattered 
throughout  the  country,  tend  to  concentrate 
chiefly  in  the  cities.  Bangkok  is  in  very  large 
part  inhabited  by  Chinese,  who,  as  elsewhere  in 
the  East,  almost  monopolize  the  local  business. 

It  is  a  far  distance  from  Peking  or  even  from 
Canton  to  Singapore,  yet  in  thai  city,  though 
ruled  by  the  British  and  in  the  Malay  orbit,  seven 


out  of  ten  inhabitants  are  Chinese,  who  outnum- 
ber the  Europeans  and  Eurasians  twenty  to  one 
and  the  Malays  more  than  four  to  one.  In  the 
Straits  Settlements  as  a  whole  the  Chinese  popu- 
lation is  400,000  as  compared  with  a  Malay  pop- 
ulation of  only  250,000.  In  the  year  1915  a 
round  100,000  immigrants  came  from  China  to 
Singapore. 

Every  year  there  arrive  at  Singapore  these 
hundred  thousand  hardy  Chinese,  and  many  find 
their  way  into  Johore,  where  there  are  already 
63,000  of  their  countrymen,  or  into  Kedah  or 
into  Java  or  into  Borneo.  Steadily  their  num- 
bers increase  as  they  make  their  way  in  the  Ma- 
laysian world. 

This  movement  into  Malaysia  is  only  in  its 
beginnings.  In  these  fertile  islands  there  seems 
to  lie  the  second  home  of  the  Chinese.  Here  they 
are  to  conquer  a  vast  new  territory. 

They  will  not  conquer  it  by  force  of  arms. 
There  is  little  danger — perhaps  no  danger  at  all 
— that  within  the  present  century  China  will  be- 
come an  aggressive  nation,  building  fleets  and 
raising  armies  to  overcome  this  district  and  wrest 
it  from  its  Dutch,  French,  German,  British,  and 
American  rulers.  It  will  be  a  peaceful  conquest, 
a  gentle,  unresisted  economic  invasion.  The  Chi- 
nese conqueror  will  be  an  unimaginative  laborer 
without  a  cent  in  his  pocket  or  a  stone  in  his  hand. 
He  will  come  solely  for  a  job.  But  year  by  year 
he  will  come  in  greater  numbers.  His  will  be 
an  economic  warfare,  a  competition  for  lands, 


mines,  trade,  investment.  He  will  be  competing 
with  men  who  do  not  much  want  these  things, 
who  take  life  easily  as  it  comes,  who  are  con- 
tent to  live  and  die  as  their  forefathers  did,  with- 
out fussiness  or  effort.  Back  of  the  Chinese  emi- 
grant, pushing  him  out  and  forward,  will  be  the 
three  hundred,  or,  as  it  may  come  to  be,  the  five 
or  eight  hundred,  millions  of  Chinese  at  home. 
It  will  be  a  competition  between  gentle,  lazy,  in- 
stinctive Malays  and  a  very  hardy  population 
schooled  to  misery  and  effort.  A  non-expansive 
race  will  be  pitted  against  a  race  which,  though 
peaceful,  has  always  conquered,  and  which, 
though  far  from  missionary,  has  always  imposed 
its  civilization. 

The  land  over  which  and  in  which  this  contest 
will  be  fought  is  one  of  the  future  paradises  of 
the  world.  There  are  a  million  square  miles  of 
territory  in  the  Malay  Archipelago,  and  some  fifty 
million  people.  There  is  plenty  of  fertile  land 
here.  Three  of  its  islands  are  greater  than  Great 
Britain,  "and  in  one  of  them,"  says  Russel  Wal- 
lace, "the  whole  of  the  British  Isles  might  be  set 
down  and  they  would  be  surrounded  by  a  sea  of 
forests."  The  soil  is  immensely  fertile,  the  tem- 
perature high,  the  rainfall  plenteous,  so  that  the 
rank  vegetation  and  the  rapidly  growing  forests 
overcome  the  feeble  efforts  of  the  sparse  popu- 
lations, unable  to  uproot  the  trees  and  keep  them 
uprooted.  To  conquer  these  lands  many  millions 
of  industrious  workers  are  necessary. 

In  only  one  of  these  islands  has  this  conquest 

[164] 


been  made — in  Java.  This  island  came  early 
under  Dutch  rule,  and  as  a  result  of  its  excellent 
administration  the  population  rapidly  increased 
in  two  centuries  from  2,000,000  to  over  30,000,- 
ooo.  It  is  still  increasing.  To-day  Java,  though 
comprising  less  than  seven  per  cent,  of  the  area 
of  the  Dutch  East  Indies,  includes  over  two- 
thirds  of  its  population.  It  has  720  people  to  the 
square  mile,  or  more  than  any  country  in  Eu- 
rope. 

It  is  in  the  other  Malaysian  islands,  in  those 
still  unpopulated,  that  a  field  for  Chinese  immi- 
gration lies  wide  open.  If  these  islands  ulti- 
mately attain  a  density  of  population  as  great 
as  that  of  Java  they  will  hold  720,000,000  souls 
instead  of  50,000,000.  These  islands  are  yearly 
becoming  more  habitable.  Under  the  rule  of  Eu- 
ropean and  American  governments  the  best  meth- 
ods of  colonial  administration  will  be  applied, 
as  well  as  those  new  systems  of  combating  trop- 
ical diseases  which  have  proved  so  successful  in 
Panama.  They  lie  close  to  the  southern  prov- 
inces of  China,  so  close  that  a  few  dollars  will 
carry  a  steerage  passenger  bringing  with  him  his 
own  rice.  The  Chinese  thrives  under  good  gov- 
ernment; he  spreads  as  a  result  of  European  im- 
perialism, just  as  in  Africa  Mohammedanism 
spreads  under  the  political  expansion  of  the  Chris- 
tian Powers.  In  the  Dutch  East  Indies,  we  are 
told,  there  are  already  "1,500,000  Chinese  and 
300,000  Arabs,"  and  "these  are  the  over-lords 
of  the  land;  and  the  Chinese  are  superior  to  the 


Arab  traders."  "Throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  Malaysia,"  writes  Dr.  Francis  Guille- 
mard,  "the  Chinese  has  made  his  way." 

Thus  the  meek  inherit  the  earth,  and  the  non- 
resisting,  unarmed  Chinese  conquers.  How  rapid 
that  conquest  may  be  within  the  present  century 
it  would  be  idle  to  speculate.  But  when  we  re- 
member that  before  the  war  over  a  million  Eu- 
ropeans annually  came  to  the  United  States,  to 
say  nothing  of  Argentine  and  Brazil,  we  may 
gather  some  idea  of  the  limitless  possibilities  of 
emigration  from  one  of  the  greatest  of  human 
reservoirs.  It  is  not  impossible  or  even  improb- 
able that  another  century  will  find  100,000,000  or 
even  200,000,000  Chinese  in  this  almost  unoc- 
cupied territory.  As  the  temperate  regions  of 
the  world  become  more  and  more  dependent  upon 
the  product  of  these  tropical  regions,  the  field 
for  Chinese  immigration,  unless  it  be  artificially 
checked,  will  grow  astoundingly. 

At  home,  too,  China  seems  about  to  expand. 
We  are  constantly  speaking  of  China  as  an  im- 
possibly overcrowded  country,  and  on  the  basis 
of  her  present  industrial  development  she  is  in- 
tolerably overcrowded.  In  proportion  to  area 
and  to  her  still  undeveloped  natural  resources, 
however,  China  is  far  from  the  limits  of  pos- 
sible growth.  The  eighteen  provinces  have  an 
estimated  population  of  less  than  250  per  square 
mile  (perhaps  even  less  than  200),  which  is  far 
lower  than  that  of  Japan,  Great  Britain,  France, 
Germany,  Italy,  Massachusetts,  or  New  Jersey. 
[166] 


China's  vast  mineral  resources  are  almost  un- 
touched, her  railroads  and  roads  are  unbuilt,  her 
new  industrial  system  is  not  yet  even  sketched. 
She  is  on  the  eve  of  a  stupendous  industrial  revo- 
lution, which  will  vastly  increase  her  wealth  and, 
probably,  her  population;  will  create  a  middle 
class,  educated  according  to  Western  ideals;  will 
bring  the  north  and  south  into  far  closer  intel- 
lectual relations  than  ever  before,  and  which  can- 
not possibly  proceed  far  without  creating  a  na- 
tional feeling. 

A  century  hence  China  at  home  and  China  be- 
yond the  sea  may  not  improbably  consist  of  a 
capable,  energetic,  intelligent,  and  highly  trained 
population  of  five  or  eight  or  even  ten  hundreds 
of  millions.  With  wealth,  internal  cohesion,  and 
a  grip  on  modern  economic  and  political  methods, 
how  can  such  a  nation  remain  in  permanent  sub- 
jection? What  can  happen  to  its  conquerors,  if 
conquerors  there  be,  other  than  to  be  quietly 
swallowed  up  in  this  measureless  yellow  sea? 

China  is  enduring,  permanent,  unconquerable, 
conquering.  As  one  views  the  nation  one  thinks 
of  the  words  that  Montaigne  applied  to  a  civil 
polity,  but  which  can  be  applied  with  even  greater 
force  to  a  living  nation.  It  is,  he  says,  "a  mighty 
and  puissant  matter,  and  of  very  hard  and  diffi- 
cult dissolution;  it  often  endureth  against  mortal 
and  intestine  diseases — yea,  against  the  injury  of 
unjust  laws,  against  tyranny,  against  the  ignorance 
and  debordement  of  magistrates,  and  against  the 
licentiousness  and  sedition  of  the  people."  The 


thing  which  unites  a  people,  which  holds  it  to- 
gether under  oppression  and  even  under  prosper- 
ity, is  tenacious  and  lasting.  And  of  all  things, 
that  which  a  virile  race  finds  easiest  to  resist  is 
foreign  domination. 

Finally,  the  Chinese  have  the  qualities  which 
make  for  national  perpetuation.  They  are  not 
a  weak  people,  not  a  loose-fibered  people,  not  an 
imitative  and  pliable  people,  but  strong,  stub- 
born, ultra-conservative,  excessively  self-centred. 
They  are  more  unimpressionable  than  the  Eng- 
lish, more  stiff-necked,  more  immovable.  Upon 
Europeans  who  live  among  them  they  exert  an 
overpowering  cultural  pressure.  They  do  not 
yield,  but  force  others  to  yield.  Nor  are  they 
a  mere  congeries  of  diverse  peoples,  like  the  East- 
Indians,  but  one  people,  divided  by  its  spoken 
tongues,  yet  united  by  its  written  language;  di- 
vided by  its  past  economic  history,  yet  bound  to 
be  united  by  its  present  economic  development; 
a  nation  sufficiently  homogeneous  racially,  suffi- 
ciently joined  by  a  powerful  and  ancient  tradi- 
tion; a  people  long-viewed,  patient,  non-resistant 
in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  more  tenaciously  re- 
sisting in  a  true  sense  than  perhaps  any  people 
in  the  world.  The  Chinese  official  was  right — 
there  can  be  no  end  to  China. 

As  I  proceeded  on  my  way  through  the  dark- 
ening streets,  through  the  throngs  and  throngs 
of  rapidly  moving  'rickshaws,  there  sounded  the 
loud  horn  of  a  motor-car  in  which  two  Americans 
were  being  driven  by  a  clever  Chinese  chauffeur. 
[1*8] 


The  'rickshaw  men  made  way  for  the  rapidly 
moving  car.  They  lazily  glanced  at  it  and  smiled 
as  it  passed;  then  each  man  looked  at  the  man 
straight  ahead,  put  down  his  shoulders,  and  pulled 
hard  again  at  his  'rickshaw.  The  endless  pro- 
cession moved  on;  the  dust-cloud  raised  by  the 
automobile  had  disappeared. 


[169] 


JAPAN'S  THWARTED  EMIGRATION 


JAPAN'S  THWARTED  EMIGRATION 

THE  Japanese  emigrant  is  permitted  to  go  wher- 
ever he  cannot  thrive.  He  is  not  permitted  to 
go  where  he  can  thrive.  This  is  the  crux  of  the 
whole  Japanese  emigration  question. 

It  is  an  ironic  choice  that  is  presented  to  the 
emigrant  from  Japan.  The  relatively  empty  lands 
where  pioneers  might  build  up  a  new  civilization 
are  locked  and  barred  and  double-barred.  They 
are  locked  to  the  Japanese  and  opened  to  the  white 
man.  On  the  other  hand,  Japan  may  people 
Korea  or  Formosa  if  she  can.  Only  she  cannot. 
Or  she  may  enter  China  and  displace  the  Chi- 
nese. The  privilege  is  as  valuable  as  the  right 
to  emigrate  to  Mars. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  Japanese  had  no 
wish  to  emigrate.  During  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury Japan  adopted  a  policy  of  complete  isola- 
tion. All  foreigners  were  forbidden  to  enter, 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  Dutch  traders,  toler- 
ated in  the  little  island  of  Deshima.  "So  long  as 
the  sun  warms  the  earth,"  declared  the  Japanese 
in  1640,  "any  Christian  bold  enough  to  come  to 
Japan,  even  if  he  be  King  Philip  himself  or  the 
God  of  the  Christians,  shall  pay  for  it  with  his 
head."  Simultaneously  the  Nipponese  were  for- 
bidden to  leave  the  country,  and  no  vessels  might 

[173] 


be  built  except  for  the  coastwise  trade.     Japan 
was  willing  to  live  unto  herself. 

Nor  was  emigration  essential  to  Japan  at  this 
time.  So  long  as  the  population  remained  sta- 
tionary, and  was  willing  to  live  as  its  ancestors 
had  lived,  room  could  be  found  at  home  in  the 
crowded  little  islands.  Since  the  Restoration, 
however,  the  population  of  Japan  Proper  has 
increased  to  fifty-six  millions,  and  the  birth-rate, 
unlike  that  of  European  and  American  countries, 
is  steadily  rising.  Emigration  is  always  from 
poor  to  rich  countries,  from  lands  of  small  to 
lands  of  great  industrial  opportunity.  Japan  is 
an  ideal  land  from  which  to  emigrate.  It  is  small, 
poor  and  crowded.  Its  people  are  hard-working, 
economical  and  reasonably  ambitious.  They  need 
to  get  out.  It  is  difficult  for  them  to  get  out. 

Of  course  there  is  some  emigration,  as  there 
has  been  during  each  of  the  last  thirty  years. 
On  June  30,  1914,  official  statistics  revealed  some 
three  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  Japanese  living 
abroad.  Of  these  almost  one-half  (48  per  cent.) 
lived  in  the  United  States  (including  the  Ha- 
waiian Islands)  ;  about  a  third  (34  per  cent.)  in 
China,  and  the  remainder  chiefly  in  other  Asiatic 
countries  and  in  South  America.  Essentially  emi- 
gration has  been  to  the  Pacific  islands  and  lit- 
toral. 

In  absolute  numbers  this  total  emigration  seems 
reasonably  large;  obviously  there  are  many  more 
Japanese  in  foreign  lands  than  there  are  Ameri- 
cans abroad.  Yet  as  an  outlet  for  the  ever-in- 

[174] 


creasing  Japanese  population,  emigration  has  not 
counted  at  all.  After  immense  effort,  both  indi- 
vidual and  collective,  during  several  decades  to 
find  outlets  for  surplus  population,  the  entire 
number  of  Japanese  abroad  is  far  less  than  is 
the  net  increase  in  the  population  every  six 
months.  In  the  coming  decade  Japan's  popula- 
tion will  probably  increase  by  from  seven  to  eight 
millions.  To  find  homes  abroad  for  even  half 
this  increment  would  require  an  increase  of  over 
1,000  per  cent,  in  the  number  of  Japanese  living 
abroad. 

The  relative  insignificance  of  the  emigration 
from  Japan  may  be  seen  by  comparing  the  total 
number  of  Japanese  living  in  foreign  countries 
with  the  number  of  Poles,  Greeks,  Norwegians, 
Danes,  Hungarians,  Slovaks  or  Italians  in  for- 
eign lands.  Out  of  every  thousand  Nipponese  in 
the  world  only  seven  are  to  be  found  in  foreign 
countries;  out  of  every  thousand  Italians  no  less 
than  one  hundred  and  seventy  live  under  alien 
flags,  and  of  these  the  majority  are  emigrants 
or  children  of  emigrants.  It  is  true  that  past  and 
present  social  habits  make  it  more  difficult  for 
the  Nipponese  than  for  the  Italian  to  acquire  the 
habit  of  emigration — and  emigration  is  a  habit — 
but  the  chief  obstacle  lies  abroad.  Japanese  im- 
migration is  opposed,  frustrated.  The  Japanese 
laborer  in  the  United  States  and  in  several  other 
countries  meets  with  distrust  and  ostracism.  He 
finds  it  difficult  to  learn  the  language,  not  only 
because  he  is  a  poor  linguist  (as  compared  with 

[175] 


the  Korean  or  the  Chinese),  but  because  the  new 
language  is  structurally  so  difficult.  He  encoun- 
ters social  opprobrium  and  economic  discrimina- 
tion. He  cannot  conceal  the  color  of  his  skin 
and  would  not  if  he  could.  Uncomfortable  and 
even  unsafe  alone,  he  conies  in  groups,  works  in 
groups,  lives  in  groups,  and  because  of  this  group 
life  he  fails  to  be  easily  assimilated  to  the  larger 
life  of  the  community  to  which  he  goes.  The 
external  barrier  creates  an  internal  barrier;  emi- 
gration is  stifled  by  the  opposition  of  the  white 
races  which  hold  the  large  and  relatively  empty 
lands,  and  this  opposition  produces  in  turn  a  re- 
luctance to  emigrate  and  a  clannishness  among 
those  who  have  already  emigrated. 

Into  the  question  of  Japanese  immigration  into 
the  United  States,  into  the  rights  and  morality 
of  this  intricate  problem,  I  do  not  propose  here 
to  enter.  I  am  considering  merely  how  the  Amer- 
ican refusal  to  open  the  door  wide  to  Japanese 
immigrants  reacts  upon  conditions  in  Japan.  That 
America  will  continue  to  erect  barriers  against  a 
free  Nipponese  immigration  is  highly  probable. 
The  reason  is  that  at  bottom  we  discover  here 
the  possibility  of  a  critical  racial  conflict,  in  which 
the  economic  advantages  are  all  on  one  side.  Were 
the  Japanese  to  be  admitted  to  the  Pacific  Coast 
with  absolute  freedom  and  allowed  to  compete 
on  fair  terms  with  Americans,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  within  two  or  three  generations  the 
country  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  would  be 
Japanese,  and  not  American,  as  the  Hawaiian 
[176] 


Islands  are  Japanese.  The  impetus  of  an  unre- 
stricted Japanese  immigration  would  be  over- 
whelming. Wages  in  Japan  are  about  one-fifth 
of  American  wages  and  the  expansive  force  of 
these  low  wages  would  rapidly  people  the  western 
coast.  That  the  wages  of  the  Japanese  actually 
in  the  United  States  are  now  high  is  not  a  de- 
cisive fact,  for  these  wages  are  high  only  because 
immigration  is  impeded.  They  are  monopoly 
wages.  If,  however,  Japanese  were  allowed  to 
enter  by  the  hundreds  of  thousands,  wages  would 
fall,  native  workmen  would  be  displaced,  and  step 
by  step  the  race  with  the  lower  economic  standard 
would  drive  out  the  race  with  the  higher  stand- 
ard, as,  for  example,  the  colored  people  of  Ja- 
maica are  gradually  driving  out  the  whites.  For 
the  world  at  large  it  might  be  better  or  worse  to 
have  California  and  other  Western  States  thus 
Orientalized,  but  no  race  and  no  nation  thinks 
in  terms  of  ultimate  world  good.  The  question 
is  not  only  an  economic  but  a  race  question,  in- 
volving the  disputed  half  empty  lands  separating 
the  dense  white  populations  from  the  yellow  races. 
It  is  a  question  involving  hatreds,  prejudices  and 
obscure  and  primitive  instincts.  Whatever  its 
ultimate  issue,  we  may  rest  assured  that  for  the 
time  being  the  emigration  of  Japanese  to  the 
United  States  will  be  limited. 

The  forces  at  work  in  California,  Washington 
and  Oregon  operate  equally  in  British  Columbia 
and  Australia.  Everywhere  there  is  an  instinctive 
Exclusion  Policy,  an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the 

[  177] 


white  races  to  monopolize  five  continents  and  to 
leave  to  the  yellow  men,  "beloved  of  the  sun," 
only  a  portion  of  one  continent.  Whether  or  not 
certain  of  the  South  American  countries  will  ulti- 
mately join  in  this  restriction  policy  cannot  yet 
be  determined.  Nor  is  it  yet  a  crucial  question 
for  them.  For  the  time  being,  the  emigration  of 
Japanese  to  Latin  American  countries  is  difficult, 
costly,  and  small;  the  conditions  of  immigration 
are  not  entirely  inviting.  The  entire  Japanese 
population  of  the  American  mainland  (including 
Latin  America)  represents  only  about  two 
months'  increase  in  the  population  of  Japan,  and 
all  the  Japanese  in  Europe  combined  are  equal 
only  to  the  excess  of  births  over  deaths  in  a  single 
day.  The  door  to  the  Western  world  is  shut. 

There  remains  Asia — China,  Manchuria,  Si- 
beria, the  Malay  Islands. 

China  presents  no  legal  obstacle  to  Japanese 
immigration;  Japan  may  export  a  million  men 
annually  to  the  neighboring  Republic  without 
evoking  protests  from  the  Chinese  Foreign  Of- 
fice. But  there  is  a  real  obstacle  far  more  in- 
surmountable than  any  legal  prohibition.  In  go- 
ing to  China  Japan  strikes  against  the  Chinese 
Wall.  It  is  not  a  wall  of  brick  and  mortar  and 
granite  blocks  like  that  which  defended  the  Chi- 
nese from  the  Northern  nomads.  It  is  a  human 
wall,  the  immense  resistance  of  a  dense  popula- 
tion of  ill-paid,  hard-working,  abstemious  and 
capable  men.  Into  China  the  Japanese  emigrant 
cannot  force  his  way,  just  as  we  Americans  could 


not,  if  we  wished,  force  our  way  into  Japan. 
After  decades  and  even  centuries,  no  non-Chinese 
race  has  ever  succeeded  in  displacing  the  Chinese; 
on  the  contrary,  each  race  ends  in  being  displaced 
by  them.  After  three  centuries  of  Portuguese 
rule,  Macao  is  more  Chinese  than  ever;  after  de- 
cades of  British  rule,  Hongkong  is  a  thoroughly 
Chinese  city.  Japan  governs  Formosa  at  will,  but 
she  cannot  people  Formosa,  for  the  Chinese  are 
already  there — to  stay. 

The  same  obstacle  meets  the  emigrant  to  Man- 
churia. Japan,  following  in  Russia's  footsteps, 
has  given  law  and  order  to  that  distracted  coun- 
try and  has  opened  it  to  immigration.  But  Chi- 
nese come  as  well  as  Japanese,  and  in  greater 
numbers;  they  underbid  and  under-live  the  Jap- 
anese. You  can  hire  Chinese  laborers  for  a  little 
over  half  of  what  you  must  pay  Japanese  work- 
men. As  a  consequence  the  Chinese  get  the  jobs, 
and  they  live  in  Manchuria  and  breed  there  and 
their  children  will  breed  there.  Undoubtedly 
there  is  room  in  all  parts  of  China  for  the  trained 
Japanese,  for  the  skilful  artisan,  the  business 
man,  the  professional  worker.  But  there  is  no 
room  for  the  only  class  that  counts — for  the  great 
bulky  mass  of  unskilled  and  undifferentiated  work- 
men and  peasants. 

Neither  in  China,  nor  in  those  Malay  States 
where  Chinese  immigration  is  permitted,  nor  in 
Formosa,  nor  in  the  United  States,  Canada,  Aus- 
tralia or  Europe  is  there  at  once  a  free  economic 
and  a  free  legal  right  to  emigrate  in  sufficient 

[  179] 


numbers  to  relieve  the  pressure  of  the  ever-in- 
creasing Japanese  population.  The  birth-rate  of 
Japan  rises;  the  farm-land  is  taken  up;  emigra- 
tion is  thwarted,  either  by  the  exclusion  policy 
of  the  whites  or  by  superior  Chinese  economic 
tenacity.  The  Japanese  -population  is  thrown 
back  upon  itself. 


i  80] 


JAPAN'S  MENACING  BIRTH-RATE 


JAPAN'S  MENACING  BIRTH-RATE 

OF  all  Japanese  problems  that  of  population  is 
the  least  discussed,  the  least  understood  and  the 
most  important.  It  is  much  more  than  important. 
It  is  vital. 

Everything  in  Japan  turns  on  this  question; 
every  phase  of  policy,  every  hope,  ambition,  effort, 
frustration  is  unconsciously  affected.  Japanese 
emigration,  Japanese  expansion,  Japanese  domes- 
tic and  foreign  relations,  Japanese  groping 
towards  industrialism — all  find  their  agent  and 
cause  in  great  part  in  this  blind  outpouring  of 
infants.  The  flood  of  babies,  upbuilding  or  de- 
vastating according  to  how  we  view  it,  is  the 
most  significant  fact  in  modern  Japan. 

Overpopulation  is  no  new  problem.  It  is  the 
oldest  in  the  world,  older  even  than  humanity. 
With  eyes  open  or  shut,  almost  every  tribe,  clan 
or  nation  at  some  time  faces  this  pressure  of  new- 
born babes,  pushing  out  into  life  and  grasping  at 
the  limited  supplies  of  food  that  are  to  maintain 
the  whole  group.  Like  other  nations  Japan  has 
had  to  face  this  problem.  Her  population  grew 
steadily.  In  the  sixth  century  there  were  about 
five  million  Japanese;  by  the  eighth  century,  eight 
and  a  half  millions;  by  the  sixteenth  century,  the 
population  seems  to  have  been  fifteen  or  twenty 


millions,  or  three  to  four  times  that  of  England 
in  the  same  period. 

Somewhere  about  the  year  1700  the  Japanese 
population  reached  the  point  where  under  the  eco- 
nomic conditions  then  existing  it  was  unable  to 
advance.  Thereafter,  for  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  it  fluctuated  between  twenty-four  and  twen- 
ty-seven millions,  these  totals,  however,  not  in- 
cluding the  samurai  or  noble  class,  or  the  pariahs 
and  beggars.  The  country  was  full  up ;  there  was 
standing  room  only.  There  was  no  more  rice  or 
millet  or  fish  to  feed  new  babies,  although  the 
land  was  cultivated  to  the  last  acre  and  the  seas 
were  scoured.  Babies  were  born  but  they  died. 
Population  was  held  down  by  disease,  pestilence 
and  starvation.  Small-pox,  measles,  dysentery  and 
typhus  ravaged  the  land,  and  in  little  over  a  cen- 
tury sixteen  great  famines  swept  the  Islands.  The 
work  of  decimation  was  also  aided  by  the  harsh 
criminal  law,  with  its  short  shrift  for  offenders, 
by  decapitation  and  crucifixion.  Gradually,  more- 
over, the  people  learned  ways  to  lessen  births. 
Among  the  samurai  and  afterwards  among  well- 
to-do  merchants,  late  marriages  came  into  vogue, 
and  in  the  large  cities  skilled  physicians  practised 
birth  prevention.  Among  the  common  people 
abortion  was  quite  usual.  Thus  by  one  means  or 
another,  by  famine,  disease,  pestilence,  birth  pre- 
vention and  infanticide,  the  population  was  held 
in  check.  By  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
an  equilibrium  had  long  since  been  established  be- 
tween birth-rate  and  death-rate.  The  birth-rate 

[184] 


was  probably  lower  than  in  any  country  in  Europe. 

Then  came  Perry,  the  breaking-down  of  Jap- 
anese isolation,  the  Restoration,  the  new  factories, 
the  growing  world  power  of  Japan.  Speaking 
figuratively  it  was  Perry  who  called  forth  the  new 
millions  of  Japanese  babies.  The  unconcealed 
guns  of  the  Commodore  created  commerce  and  an 
industrial  system,  and  out  of  these  arose  astonish- 
ing cities  of  factory  workers,  like  Tokyo  and 
Osaka.  Japan  drifted  into  the  full  tide  of  a  giddy 
industrialism,  which  meant  wealth  for  the  few,  a 
strenuous  poverty  for  the  many,  congestion,  speed 
and  babies.  As  the  factories  grew  and  as  the  new 
cities  overflowed  into  adjacent  rice  paddies,  babies 
— the  future  factory  workers  and  docile  clerks — 
poured  forth  unceasingly  from  the  farms.  As  in 
other  countries,  new  to  industrialism,  the  birth- 
rate outstripped  custom  and  expectation. 

In  Japan  the  birth-rate  was  stimulated  by 
patriotic  and  religious  motives,  which  heavily  em- 
phasized the  duty  of  parenthood.  But  the  chief 
incentive  to  an  increased  birth-rate  was  the  low 
cost  of  living.  The  civilizaion  of  Japan  was,  as 
it  still  is,  an  inexpensive  civilization.  The  Japanese 
were  a  rice,  fish  and  millet  eating  people,  and  all 
these  articles  were  obtained  at  small  cost.  For 
centuries  the  population  had  lived  in  poverty,  un- 
der conditions  in  which  those  survived  who  could 
live  on  the  least  food  rather  than  those  who  could 
do  more  work  on  more  food.  As  in  other  Asiatic 
lands  this  non-exigent  type  of  worker  had  won  the 
right  to  live  and  procreate. 


Moreover  the  whole  political  and  social  philos- 
ophy of  Japan  favored  this  abstemious,  and  there- 
fore fecund,  type.  "When  I  was  a  child,"  a  Jap- 
anese statesman  recently  remarked,  "I  was  taught 
by  my  parents  that  I  should  not  trouble  myself 
about  taste  in  what  I  ate,  because  it  was  unworthy 
of  a  man  to  complain  in  any  way  about  what  he 
ate.  More  than  this,  we  have  been  practising  for 
many  years  another  mistaken  Bushido  teaching, 
that  a  samurai  or  manly  person  should  never  com- 
plain of  hunger,  even  when  he  is  really  hungry." 
Japan's  philosophy  thus  ignored  those  material 
needs  and  desires  which  have  held  the  population 
of  the  Western  World  in  check.  Life  was  cheap; 
children  cost  little  and  since  they  could  early  be 
employed,  seemed  to  pay  for  themselves.  Even 
today,  when  industrialism  has  taken  a  firmer  root, 
one  cannot  look  about  at  the  frail  little  houses,  the 
cheap  cotton  clothes  and  wooden  clogs,  and  the 
inexpensive  food  and  furnishings  with  which  the 
Japanese  workers  seem  content,  without  realizing 
how  weak  are  here  the  instincts  which  in  our 
Western  countries  tend  to  set  a  limit  to  the  pop- 
ulation. 

Once  the  lid  was  off,  the  new  industrial  system 
demanded  millions  of  cheap  workers,  men  and 
women.  The  millions  were  born.  Since  1870  the 
growth  of  the  population  has  been  portentous.  In 
1874  there  were  less  than  34,000,000  people  in 
Japan  Proper;  today  (November,  1917)  there 
are  no  less  than  56,000,000.  This  is  a  fairly  high 
rate  of  increase,  though  by  no  means  unexampled. 
[186] 


What  is  most  significant,  however,  is  that  the  rate 
of  increase  is  itself  increasing.  In  1886,  1,108,967 
babies  were  born;  in  1911  no  less  than  1,747,803 
(still  births  excluded).  In  the  former  year  there 
were  28.8  births  per  thousand  of  the  population; 
in  the  latter  year  33.7  per  thousand.  The  death- 
rate  remains  stationary;  the  birth-rate  steadily 
grows.  It  is  a  phenomenon  quite  contrary  to  that 
which  is  observed  in  Europe  and  America,  where 
both  death-rate  and  birth-rate  steadily  fall. 
Because  of  this  growing  birth-rate  the  already 
crowded  population  of  Japan  Proper  is  increasing 
at  the  rate  of  three-quarters  of  a  million  a  year. 
Where  is  room  to  be  found  for  these  new 
millions? 

In  agriculture,  where  the  average  farm  today 
is  already  less  than  three  acres?  It  is  to  the  fields 
that  man  looks  instinctively  for  his  support.  Like 
his  forefathers  for  generations  untold,  he  aspires 
to  the  daily  hard  toil  of  ploughing,  manuring, 
sowing,  weeding  and  reaping.  It  is  so  in  Japan 
as  elsewhere.  In  the  old  days  when  the  credulous 
Nipponese  still  believed  that  the  Food  God  had 
sowed  the  first  rice  plant  (which  sprang  from  his 
own  body)  in  a  wet  field,  and  the  seeds  of  millet, 
panicum,  wheat  and  beans  in  a  dry  field,  the  in- 
stinctive recourse  of  millions  of  youths  was  to  this 
ancient  and  honorable  occupation.  It  is  the  same 
today  when  the  Japanese  farmer  is  perhaps  the 
graduate  of  an  agricultural  high  school  or  even 
possibly,  of  the  Agricultural  College  of  the  Tokyo 
Imperial  University. 

[187] 


Unfortunately  there  is  a  rigid  and  harsh  law  in 
agriculture,  a  law  of  Nature  and  not  of  man.  It 
is  the  law  of  decreasing  returns.  This  law  decrees 
that  beyond  a  certain  point  every  added  laborer 
employed  on  a  farm  and  every  added  dollar  in- 
vested bring  in  a  smaller  return  than  the  former 
laborers  employed  or  the  former  dollars  invested. 
Ten  men  will  raise  more  on  a  given  farm  than 
will  five,  but  not  twice  as  much.  If  you  improve 
your  methods  you  may  profitably  employ  a  few 
more  men  and  a  little  more  capital,  but  at  last 
there  comes  a  time  when  each  new  laborer  is  em- 
ployed at  a  disadvantage.  The  fields  are  then 
full;  agriculture  has  reached  a  point  at  which  it 
does  not  pay  a  nation  to  place  more  men  in  this 
industry,  a  point  at  which  agricultural  wages  be- 
gin to  fall  and  men  instinctively  move  to  other 
occupations. 

The  law  may  be  illustrated  in  the  case  of 
England.  That  country  could  possibly  employ  her 
entire  population  in  agriculture,  but  only  at  such 
a  great  disadvantage  as  to  reduce  the  nation  to 
penury.  Belgium  would  actually  starve  if  all  her 
people  were  placed  on  the  farms.  As  a  conse- 
quence, during  the  last  century  while  the  popula- 
tion of  England  has  rapidly  increased,  her  farm- 
ing population  has  actually  decreased.  She  finds 
other  occupations  for  her  yearly  crop  of  new 
workers. 

The  visual  impression  one  gets  of  the  Japanese 
countryside,  even  without  leaving  the  railway 
compartment,  is  that  the  fields  are  already  over- 
[188] 


crowded.  As  you  travel  through  the  beautiful 
island  of  Hondo,  encircling  with  a  wide  sweep  the 
majestic  Fuji  mountain,  you  are  never  out  of  sight 
of  the  bare-legged  Japanese  farmer,  up  to  his 
knees  in  the  flooded  paddies  or  working  with 
spade  or  ladle  on  the  land,  with  a  courage  born 
of  centuries  of  hard  wrestling  with  Nature.  The 
country  seems  one  long,  straggling,  inchoate  vil- 
lage ;  everywhere  are  men  and  nowhere — or  seem- 
ingly nowhere — horses,  cattle,  sheep  and  swine. 
The  clustering  men,  the  ubiquitous  women  and 
children,  seem  to  have  crowded  the  domestic  ani- 
mals from  off  the  land.  And  in  many  parts  of 
the  country  this  is  literally  true.  A  horse  or  a 
cow  takes  up  too  much  room  for  its  support.  It 
is  hard  for  men  to  perform  the  labor  of  horses, 
but  where  farms  are  very  small  and  very  dear, 
and  fodder  is  expensive,  there  is  no  other  way. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  tiny  farms  in  the 
more  densely  populated  parts  of  Japan  swarm 
with  men  and  are  bare  of  domestic  animals. 

When  we  grasp  the  smallness  of  Japan  and  the 
size  of  its  population,  we  readily  understand  why 
the  land  is  so  crowded.  Japan  Proper  is  a  narrow 
and  diminutive  country.  Its  area  of  roughly  1 50,- 
ooo  square  miles  is  somewhat  smaller  than  that 
of  California,  while  its  population  is  twenty  times 
as  great.  Moreover,  like  Italy,  Japan  is  chiefly  a 
country  of  mountains  and  its  arable  land  under 
cultivation  amounts  to  only  some  25,000  square 
miles,  a  farm  area  less  than  half  that  of  the  single 
state  of  Iowa.  It  follows  that  Japan  is  the  classic 
land  of  intensive  agriculture.  Its  dwarf  farms  are 
[189] 


not  really  farms  at  all  in  our  sense  of  the  word, 
but  gardens.  There  are  no  pastures,  no  barn- 
yards, but  merely  little  squares  of  land,  now  cov- 
ered with  water,  now  filled  with  mud  drying  in 
the  sun,  and  now  vividly  green  with  the  beautiful 
rice  plants.  These  little  patches  of  terraced  and 
irrigated  land  have  nothing  in  common  with  our 
one  hundred  and  sixty  acre  farms.  In  Japan  the 
average  agricultural  family  (and  there  are  five 
and  a  half  millions  of  them)  occupies  only  two  and 
three-quarters  acres  each.  Only  one  family  in  ten 
has  as  much  as  five  acres  (two  cho]  and  over  one- 
third  of  all  rural  families  have  farms  of  less  than 
one  and  one-quarter  acres.  It  is  morcellement 
carried  to  a  tragic*  absurdity. 

The  living  to  be  made  out  of  these  petty  farms 
by  the  overflowing,  fecund  Japanese  is  of  the 
meagrest.  His  is  the  most  meticulous  farming  in 
the  world.  Every  inch  of  ground  is  carefully  cul- 
tivated, every  possible  saving  seduously  made. 
Human  waste  is  collected  with  faithful  care  and 
is  piously  returned  to  the  land.  Nothing  could 
be  more  painstaking  than  this  strenuous,  small- 
scale  agriculture.  A  solicitous  government  aids 
these  farmers  by  means  of  experiment  stations 
which  give  advice  and  instruction,  and  above  all 
the  farmers  help  themselves.  By  dint  of  hard 
labor  and  hard  scrimping,  they  manage  to  secure 
some  sort  of  a  living  from  their  three  acres. 

In  judging  the  lot  of  these  Japanese  farmers 
we  must  not  be  misled  by  the  large  crops  which 
they  secure  from  a  single  acre.  The  yield  in  the 
paddy  fields,  where  most  of  the  rice  is  grown,  is 

[  190] 


high  and  in  a  large  part  of  the  area  there  are  two 
crops  a  year.  Science,  moreover,  has  steadily  in- 
creased the  average  crop,  which  today  is  almost 
exactly  one-third  larger  than  twenty  years  ago. 
But  while  the  yield  per  acre  is  great,  the  yield  per 
farm  or  per  family  is  pitiably  small.  Judged  by 
our  standards,  or  by  those  of  West  Europe,  the 
lot  of  the  Japanese  farmer  on  his  three  acre  farm 
is  extremely  bad. 

In  a  majority  of  cases  this  petty  farmer  does 
not  even  own  his  whole  farm.  Of  the  five  and 
one-half  million  farming  families  in  Japan  Proper, 
only  one-third  own  all  the  lands  they  cultivate, 
less  than  a  third  are  tenants,  and  over  a  third  com- 
bine tenantry  with  ownership.'  Naturally  the  lot 
of  the  tenant  is  even  worse  than  that  of  the  small 
proprietor.  For  his  rent  the  tenant  pays  on  an 
average  half  the  total  yield,  while  the  landlord 
meets  the  onerous  and  ever-mounting  land  taxes. 
For  the  tenant  there  is  very  little  surplus  and  next 
to  no  opportunity  to  acquire  property  of  his  own. 
Land  values  are  high.  Good  paddy  lands,  in  No- 
vember, 1915,  sold  at  an  average  at  about  $800 
(1600  yen)  per  acre,  ordinary  paddy  lands  at 
about  $600  and  poor  paddy  lands  at  about  $350; 
the  price  of  the  upland  farms  was  about  half  as 
much.  The  pressure  of  population  upon  the  small 
farm  area  raises  land  values  to  a  point  where  it 
is  extraordinarily  difficult  for  a  tenant  to  become 
an  independent  proprietor. 

But  for  the  rural  trades,  and  especially  the  silk 
industry,  many  of  these  little  farmers  and  tenants 
could  not  live  at  all.  It  is  the  American  demand 


for  raw  silk  that  saves  the  smaller  Japanese  farm- 
ers from  being  crushed.  About  three-fifths  of  all 
the  silk  used  in  the  United  States  comes  from 
Japan,  and  it  is  in  the  little  farm  houses  of  the 
archipelago  that  the  deft  peasant  women,  in  com- 
petition with  their  sisters  in  Italy  and  China,  pre- 
pare this  silk.  In  all,  over  1,700,000  Japanese 
rural  families  devote  themselves  to  this  and  other 
occupations,  and  thus  eke  out  the  scanty  returns 
from  agriculture.  Of  the  farming  families  al- 
most a  third  have  some  occupation  subsidiary  to 
farming. 

Thus  the  Japanese  farmer,  assiduous,  econom- 
ical and  hard-pressed,  has  managed  in  the  past  to 
hold  his  own.  In  fact  he  has  more  than  held  his 
own.  He  has  accomplished  this  largely  as  a  result 
of  a  better  agricultural  education,  for  today  sev- 
eral hundreds  of  thousands  of  Japanese  have 
passed  through  the  agricultural  schools.  By 
means  of  these  better  farming  methods,  the  study 
of  soils,  the  use  of  better  seeds  and  of  better  fer- 
tilizers, the  farmer  has  actually  improved  his  lot. 
Not  only  does  he  raise  more  rice  than  before,  as 
well  as  more  rye,  barley,  wheat,  beans,  potatoes, 
sweet  potatoes  and  other  crops,  but  the  value  of 
these  commodities  has  increased.  He  gets  a  better 
price  for  his  rice.  As  a  result  the  farmer  who 
once  went  bare-headed  now  affects  a  hat,  he  wears 
rather  better  clothes,  his  house  is  somewhat  better 
furnished,  and  not  only  does  he  send  his  boy  to 
school,  as  he  is  obliged  to  do,  but  not  infrequently 
sends  him  to  high  school.  Endurance,  skill,  science 
and  governmental  guidance,  together  with  favor- 
[  192] 


able  changes  in  agricultural  world  conditions,  have 
enabled  the  microscopic  Japanese  farmer  to  better 
his  conditions  even  in  the  face  of  an  increased 
pressure  of  the  farming  population  upon  the  nar- 
row land  area  of  Japan. 

There  are  Japanese  who  believe  that  this  prog- 
ress can  go  on  indefinitely.  They  point  out  that 
there  is  a  margin  of  uncultivated  land.  One  can 
still  create  new  farms  in  the  island  of  Hokkaido, 
and  if  all  the  mountain  land  with  a  slope  of  less 
than  fifteen  per  cent,  were  brought  under  cultiva- 
tion, an  additional  ten  million  acres  would  be 
available,  or  enough  land  for  an  extra  ten  million 
or  more  of  rural  dwellers.  It  is  not  an  easy  thing, 
however,  to  reclaim  these  lands  and  it  cannot  be 
done  without  the  investment  of  much  labor  and 
capital,  an  investment  which  is  unprofitable  unless 
very  high  agricultural  prices  are  maintained.  Nor 
can  it  be  expected  that  the  farmer  of  Japan  will 
forever  be  contented  with  his  present  meagre 
earnings.  In  the  olden  feudal  days  he  received 
part  of  his  reward  in  social  prestige;  though  he 
stood  below  the  samurai,  he  was  above  the  mer- 
chants and  mechanics.  Today,  however,  Japan  is 
accepting  pecuniary  standards  in  these  matters, 
and  the  honest  farmer,  who  with  his  family  earns 
fifty  or  a  hundred  dollars  a  year,  is  rated  lower 
than  the  little  merchant  who  gains  five  hundred  or 
a  thousand  dollars.  Moreover,  in  Japan  as  else- 
where, the  city  offers  social  and  intellectual  pleas- 
ures  unattainable  on  the  farm.  With  each  year 
therefore  the  farmer  desires  a  better  living  and  a 
more  agreeable  life.  So  overwhelming  is  the  pres- 

[193] 


sure  of  population  already,  and  so  powerful  is  the 
attraction  of  even  the  slums  of  the  great  cities, 
that  the  exodus  from  the  farms  becomes  greater 
every  year. 

Finally  there  seems  little  chance  of  any  con- 
siderable improvement  in  the  lot  of  the  Japanese 
farmer  without  increasing  the  size  of  his  farm. 
Intensive  cultivation  is  the  most  wasteful  farming 
in  the  world;  while  it  saves  materials  it  is  exces- 
sively lavish  in  human  labor,  the  most  valuable 
commodity  of  all.  It  prevents  the  adequate  use  of 
draft  animals  and  of  labor-saving  machinery.  The 
ambition  of  the  Japanese  farmer  is  to  add  an 
acre  or  two  to  his  Lilliputian  farm,  in  order  to 
employ  his  own  labor  and  that  of  his  family  more 
effectively.  But  for  each  farmer  to  cultivate  a 
larger  area  means  a  lessening  of  the  number  of 
farms  on  the  present  area. 

Japan  seems  therefore  to  have  reached  the 
stage  where  the  pressure  of  a  growing  population 
upon  the  farmland  of  the  country  will  become  in- 
creasingly intense.  Even  though  new  farms  be 
created  in  the  cold  northern  island  of  Hokkaido 
and  on  the  mountain  slopes  there  will  not  be  room 
in  the  field  of  agriculture  for  more  than  the  small- 
est portion  of  the  new  increases  in  the  Japanese 
population.  The  countryside  has  doubtless  not 
reached  the  point  of  saturation,  where  it  can  take 
in  no  new  inhabitants.  What  is  clear,  however,  is 
that  the  movement  already  begun  from  country  to 
city  will  be  sharply  intensified.  The  new  children 
will  be  met  at  manhood  with  the  alternative  of 
finding  a  place  in  Japanese  cities,  in  Japanese  fac- 

[  194] 


tories,  workshops  and  offices,  or  else  of  taking 
ship  and  emigrating,  either  to  the  overseas  pos- 
sessions of  Japan  or  to  lands  further  away  in 
which  the  foreigner  rules. 

In  Japan  itself,  however,  there  seem  to  be  few 
misgivings  concerning  the  population  problem. 
Although  the  population  is  increasing  by  seven 
and  a  half  millions  a  decade,  the  steadily  rising 
birth-rate  is  hailed  by  all  classes  as  a  healthy  sign 
of  development.  On  the  population  question  the 
Japanese  are  supremely  optimistic. 

In  part,  no  doubt,  this  optimism  is  due  to  a 
general  hopefulness  of  the  people.  Japan's  recent 
military  successes  against  China  and  Russia  and 
her  victory  over  the  German  garrison  at  Tsingtao 
have  inspired  in  the  population  a  vast  self-confi- 
dence. Her  industrial  successes  have  had  a  simi- 
lar effect.  Her  factories  are  multiplying,  her 
commerce  is  expanding,  her  merchant  marine  is 
increasing  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Money  wages 
are  rapidly  advancing.  Her  attitude  towards  the 
question  of  population  therefore  is  not  like  that 
of  England  of  today,  a  country  well  advanced  in 
industrialism,  like  a  middle-aged  manufacturer, 
successful  and  discreet.  Japan's  attitude  is  like 
that  of  England  a  hundred  years  ago,  in  the  first 
flush  of  a  youthful,  optimistic  industrialism.  Japan 
still  believes  that  the  more  babies  the  better. 

In  fact  the  high  and  above  all  increasing  birth- 
rate among  the  Japanese  seems  to  fit  in  with  all 
the  main  trends  of  thought  in  the  Empire.  It  suits 
the  militarists,  who  believe  that  Japan,  to  become 
a  world  power,  must  have  a  population  of  one 

[195] 


hundred  millions,  in  order  to  exert  the  outward 
pressure  which  will  move  frontiers  and  change  the 
face  of  the  world.  To  have  empire,  say  the  im- 
perialists, we  must  have  children;  we  must  have 
children,  say  the  capitalists,  to  have  cheap  labor 
and  successful  industries.  Let  us  have  children, 
cry  all  the  Japanese  people,  in  order  to  maintain 
our  institutions,  our  religion  based  on  ancestor 
worship,  our  family  piety,  our  ancient  rule  of 
simple  living  and  hard  work. 

The  majority  of  men,  and  still  more  of  women, 
upon  whom  the  brunt  of  this  pressure  falls  are 
as  yet  unrepresented  in  these  discussions.  The 
fathers  of  most  Japanese  babies  are  voteless  and 
speechless;  they  do  not  discuss  social  problems. 
Yet  they  too,  if  they  were  consulted,  would  doubt- 
less agree  that  large  families  were  of  benefit  to 
the  Emperor  and  the  Empire.  And  theories  or  no 
theories  they  continue  to  breed. 

The  Japanese  savants  also  think  on  this  subject 
as  do  the  people,  and  what  is  more  significant  act 
as  do  the  people.  In  France  we  observe  celibate 
intellectuals  adjuring  peasants  and  workmen  to 
raise  large  families ;  in  Japan  the  intellectuals  have 
many  children,  five,  seven,  even  nine  to  a  family. 
They  too  seem  quite  unalarmed  concerning  the 
present  growth  of  the  population.  In  February 
of  last  year  there  was  a  convocation  of  economists 
at  Kyoto  to  celebrate  the  i5Oth  anniversary  of 
Thomas  Robert  Malthus,  and  the  meeting  was 
devoted  to  a  discussion  of  the  population  ques- 
tion. There  were  excellent  papers,  philosophical, 
statistical,  expert,  but  no  note  of  pessimism  seems 

[196] 


to  have  been  struck.  The  general  opinion,  appar- 
ently, was  that  agriculture,  industrial  development 
and  emigration  would  take  care  of  any  increase 
likely  to  occur.  Beneath  all  the  economic  argu- 
ments there  ran  a  semi-religious,  fatalistic,  pre- 
Darwinian  conception  that  no  child  is  born  without 
Nature  providing  in  advance  for  its  sustenance.  It 
is  an  instinctive  human  attitude  which  appears  and 
reappears  through  the  centuries  in  West  and  East. 
"Some  persons,"  observes  the  Chinese  philosopher 
Ch'engtze  (of  the  Sung  dynasty),  "say  that  there 
are  more  people  than  the  land  can  possibly  sup- 
port. This  is  not  so.  Take  the  plants  for  ex- 
ample. If  you  place  a  certain  number  of  them 
on  the  hillside,  they  take  root  and  grow.  The 
economy  of  Nature  always  provides  for  things 
that  are  produced.  It  is  against  reason,  therefore, 
that  there  should  be  more  men  than  the  land  can 
support." 

So  the  Japanese  population  increases.  At  the 
present  geometrical  rate  of  growth,  Japan  proper 
(exclusive  of  Korea,  Formosa,  Saghalien  and 
other  possessions)  would  attain  a  population  of 
one  hundred  millions  in  about  forty  years.  But 
already  the  pressure  of  the  growing  population 
makes  itself  felt.  Prices  are  rising,  rents  increas- 
ing; the  great  cities  become  intolerably  congested 
and  the  cleavage  between  rich  and  poor  grows 
deeper  and  wider.  There  is  an  outward  pushing 
of  Japan  towards  the  iron  mines  of  China ;  there  is 
a  feverish  industrial  activity;  there  is  a  growing 
dissatisfaction  among  the  poor,  a  growing  skep- 
ticism, an  unrest,  partly  though  vaguely  revolu- 

[  197] 


tionary  and  partly  imperialistic.  Finally  a  febrile 
quality  appears  in  Japan's  public  opinion. 

Because  of  this  population  pressure,  Japan  to- 
day is  beset  by  perplexing  difficulties,  by  divided 
counsels,  by  an  uninformed  discontent,  which 
pushes  her  forward  into  all  sorts  of  adventures. 
Though  growing  richer  she  feels  an  increased 
economic  pressure.  She  is  in  the  shadow  of  a 
great  trial. 

As  England  profited  by  her  birth-rate  a  hun- 
dred years  ago  and  came  successfully  through  her 
great  trial,  so  Japan  may  do  in  the  twentieth  con- 
tury.  But  the  situation  is  not  entirely  the  same. 
England  then  possessed  a  far  smaller  population 
than  Japan  now  possesses;  she  had  greater  agri- 
cultural and  infinitely  more  valuable  mineral  re- 
sources; she  was  a  pioneer  in  industrialism 
whereas  Japan  is  only  the  latest  recruit,  making 
her  way  against  better  equipped  rivals.  More- 
over, England  during  the  period  of  her  highest 
birth-rate  was  able  to  send  her  surplus  population 
not  only  to  her  own  empty  colonies  but  also  to  the 
United  States  and  other  foreign  countries.  Japa- 
nese emigration,  on  the  other  hand,  is  thwarted 
and  checked. 

Japan  must  meet  the  problem  which  England 
and  other  countries  have  successfully  met,  the 
problem  of  adjusting  her  political  and  economic 
development  to  her  increasing  birth-rate.  She 
must  meet  this  problem  under  difficulties  greater 
and  more  perplexing  than  those  which  have  faced 
the  other  nations  in  their  great  trial. 

[198] 


THE  CLASH  OF  THE  RACES 


THE  CLASH  OF  THE  RACES 

WE  must  not  forget  that  these  men  and  women 
who  file  through  the  narrow  gates  at  Ellis  Island, 
hopeful,  confused,  with  bundles  of  misconceptions 
as  heavy  as  the  great  sacks  upon  their  backs — we 
must  not  forget  that  these  simple,  rough-handed 
people  are  the  ancestors  of  our  descendants,  the 
fathers  and  mothers  of  our  children. 

So  it  has  been  from  the  beginning.  For  a  cen- 
tury a  swelling  human  stream  has  poured  across 
the  ocean,  fleeing  from  poverty  in  Europe  to  a 
chance  in  America.  Englishman,  Welshman, 
Scotchman,  Irishman;  German,  Swede,  Nor- 
wegian, Dane;  Jew,  Italian,  Bohemian,  Serb, 
Syrian,  Hungarian,  Pole,  Greek — one  race  after 
another  has  knocked  at  our  doors,  been  given 
admittance,  has  married  us  and  begot  our  children. 
We  could  not  have  told  by  looking  at  them  whether 
they  were  to  be  good  or  bad  progenitors,  for 
racially  the  cabin  is  not  above  the  steerage,  and 
dirt,  like  poverty  and  ignorance,  is  but  skin-deep. 
A  few  hours,  and  the  stain  of  travel  has  left  the 
immigrant's  cheek;  a  few  years,  and  he  loses  the 
odor  of  alien  soils;  a  generation  or  two,  and  these 
outlanders  are  irrevocably  our  race,  our  nation, 
our  stock. 

That  stock,  a  little  over  a  century  ago,  was  al- 
[201  ] 


most  pure  British.  True,  Albany  was  Dutch,  and 
many  of  the  signs  in  the  Philadelphia  streets  were 
in  the  German  language.  Nevertheless,  five- 
sixths  of  all  the  family  names  collected  in  1790 
by  the  census  authorities  were  pure  English,  and 
over  nine-tenths  (90.2  per  cent.)  were  British. 
Despite  the  presence  of  Germans,  Dutch,  French, 
and  Negroes,  the  American  was  essentially  an 
Englishman  once  removed,  an  Englishman  stuffed 
with  English  traditions,  prejudices  ,and  stubborn- 
nesses reading  English  books,  speaking  English 
dialects,  practising  English  law  and  English  eva- 
sions of  the  law,  and  hating  England  with  a  truly 
English  hatred.  In  all  but  a  political  sense 
America  was  still  one  of  "His  Majesty's  do- 
minions beyond  the  sea."  Even  after  immigra- 
tion poured  in  upon  us,  the  English  stock  was 
strong  enough  to  impress  upon  the  immigrating 
races  its  language,  laws,  and  customs.  Neverthe- 
less, the  incoming  millions  profoundly  altered  our 
racial  structure.  To-day  over  thirty-two  million 
Americans  are  either  foreign-born  or  of  foreign 
parentage.  No  longer  an  Anglo-Saxon  cousin, 
America  has  become  the  most  composite  of 
nations. 

We  cannot  help  seeing  that  such  a  vast  trans- 
fusion of  blood  must  powerfully  affect  the  char- 
acter of  the  American.  What  that  influence  is  to 
be,  however,  whether  for  better  or  for  worse,  is 
a  question  more  baffling.  Our  optimists  conceive 
the  future  American,  the  child  of  this  infinite  in- 
termarrying, as  a  glorified,  synthetical  person,  re- 
[  202  ] 


plete  with  the  best  qualities  of  all  component 
races.  He  is  to  combine  the  sturdiness  of  the 
Bulgarian  peasant,  the  poetry  of  the  Pole,  the 
vivid  artistic  perceptions  of  the  Italian,  the  Jew's 
intensity,  the  German's  thoroughness,  the  Irish- 
man's verve,  the  tenacity  of  the  Englishman,  with 
the  initiative  and  versatility  of  the  American.  The 
pessimist,  on  the  other  hand,  fears  the  worst. 
America,  he  believes,  is  committing  the  unpardon- 
able sin;  is  contracting  a  mesalliance,  grotesque 
and  gigantic.  We  are  diluting  our  blood  with  the 
blood  of  lesser  breeds.  We  are  suffering  adultera- 
tion. The  stamp  upon  the  coin — the  flag,  the 
language,  the  national  sense — remains,  but  the 
silver  is  replaced  by  lead. 

All  of  which  is  singularly  unconvincing.  In  our 
families,  the  children  do  not  always  inherit  the 
best  qualities  of  father  and  mother,  and  we  have 
no  assurance  that  the  children  of  mixed  races  have 
this  selective  gift  and  rise  superior  to  their  parent 
stocks.  Nor  do  we  know  that  they  fall  below. 
We  hear  much  concerning  "pure"  races  and  "mon- 
grel" races.  But  is  there  in  all  the  world  a  pure 
race?  The  Jew,  once  supposed  to  be  of  Levitical 
pureness,  is  now  known  to  be  racially  unorthodox. 
The  Englishmen  is  not  pure  Anglo-Saxon,  the  Ger- 
man is  not  Teutonic,  the  Russian  is  not  Slav.  To 
be  mongrel  may  be  a  virtue  or  a  vice.  We  do  not 
know.  The  problem  is  too  subtle,  too  elusive, 
and  we  have  no  approved  receipts  in  this  vast 
eugenic  kitchen.  Intermarrying  will  go  on, 
whether  we  like  it  or  loathe  it,  for  love  laughs  at 

[203] 


racial  barriers  and  the  maidens  of  one  nation  look 
fair  to  the  youths  of  another.  Let  the  kettle  boil 
and  let  us  hope  for  the  best. 

But  the  newcomer  brings  with  him  more  than  his 
potential  parenthood,  and  he  influences  America 
and  the  American  in  other  ways  than  by  marriage 
and  procreation.  He  creates  new  problems  of  ad- 
justment. He  enters  into  a  new  environment.  He 
creates  a  new  environment  for  us.  Unconsciously 
but  irresistibly  he  transforms  an  America  which 
he  does  not  know.  He  forces  the  native  American 
to  change,  to  change  that  he  may  feel  at  home  in 
his  own  home. 

When  we  seek  to  discover  what  is  the  exact 
influence  of  the  immigrant  upon  his  new  environ- 
ment, we  are  met  with  difficulties  almost  as  insur- 
mountable as  those  which  enter  into  the  problem 
of  the  immigrant's  influence  upon  our  common 
heredity.  Social  phenomena  are  difficult  to  iso- 
late. The  immigrant  is  not  merely  an  immigrant; 
he  is  also  a  wage-earner,  a  city-dweller,  perhaps 
an  illiterate.  Wage-earning,  city-dwelling,  and 
illiteracy  are  all  contributing  influences.  Your  im- 
migrant is  a  citizen  of  the  new  factory,  of  the 
great  industrial  State,  within,  yet  almost  over- 
shadowing, the  political  State.  Into  each  of  our 
problems — wages  and  labor,  illiteracy,  crime,  vice, 
insanity,  pauperism,  democracy — the  immigrant 
enters. 

There  is  in  all  the  world  no  more  difficult,  no 
more  utterly  bewildering  problem  than  this  of  the 
intermingling  of  races.    Already  thirty  million  im- 
[204] 


migrants  have  arrived,  of  whom  considerably  over 
twenty  millions  have  remained.  To  interpret  this 
pouring  of  new,  strange  millions  into  the  old,  to 
trace  its  result  upon  the  manners,  the  morals,  the 
emotional  and  intellectual  reactions  of  the  Ameri- 
cans, is  like  searching  out  the  yellow  waters  of 
the  Missouri  in  the  vast  flood  of  the  lower  Missis- 
sippi. Our  immigrating  races  are  many,  and  they 
meet  diverse  kinds  of  native  Americans  on  vary- 
ing planes  and  at  innumerable  contact  points.  So 
complex  is  the  resulting  pattern,  so  multitudinous 
are  the  threads  interwoven  into  so  many  perplex- 
ing combinations,  that  we  struggle  in  vain  to  un- 
weave this  weaving.  At  best  we  can  merely  follow 
a  single  color,  noting  its  appearance  here  and  its 
reappearance  there,  in  this  vast  and  many-hued 
tapestry  which  we  call  American  life. 

Fortunately  we  are  not  compelled  to  embark 
upon  so  ambitious  a  study.  We  are  here  con- 
cerned, not  with  the  all-inclusive  question,  "Is  Im- 
migration good  or  bad?"  but  with  the  problem 
of  how  immigration  has  contributed  to  certain 
broad  developments  in  the  character  and  habits 
of  the  American,  and  even  to  this  question  we 
must  be  content  with  a  half-answer. 

When  we  compare  the  America  of  to-day  with 
the  America  of  half  a  century  ago,  certain  differ- 
ences stand  out  sharply.  America  to-day  is  far 
richer.  It  is  also  more  stratified.  Our  social 
gamut  has  been  widened.  There  are  more  vivid 
contrasts,  more  startling  differences,  in  education 
and  in  the  general  chances  of  life.  We  are  less 
[205] 


rural  and  more  urban,  losing  the  virtues  and  the 
vices,  the  excellences  and  the  stupidities,  of  coun- 
try life,  and  gaining  those  of  the  city.  We  are 
massing  in  our  cities  armies  of  the  poor  to  take 
the  place  of  country  ne'er-do-wells  and  village 
hangers-on.  We  are  more  sophisticated.  We  are 
more  lax  and  less  narrow.  We  have  lost  our 
earlier  frugal  simplicity,  and  have  become  extrava- 
gant and  competitively  lavish.  We  have,  in  short, 
created  a  new  type  of  American,  who  lives  in  the 
city,  reads  newspapers  and  even  books,  bathes  fre- 
quently, travels  occasionally;  a  man,  fluent  intel- 
lectually and  physically  restless,  ready  but  not  pro- 
found, intent  upon  success,  not  without  idealism, 
but  somewhat  disillusioned,  pleasure-loving,  hard- 
working, humorous.  At  the  same  time  there 
grows  a  sense  of  a  social  mal-adjustment,  a  sense 
of  a  failure  of  America  to  live  up  to  expectations, 
and  an  intensifying  desire  to  right  a  not  clearly 
perceived  wrong.  There  develops  a  vigorous,  if 
somewhat  vague  and  untrained,  moral  impulse,  an 
impulse  based  on  social  rather  than  individual 
ethics,  unesthetic,  democratic,  headlong. 

Although  this  development  might  have  come 
about  in  part,  at  least,  without  immigration,  the 
process  has  been  enormously  accelerated  by  the 
arrival  on  our  shores  of  millions  of  Europeans. 
These  men  came  to  make  a  living,  and  they  made 
not  only  their  own  but  other  men's  fortunes.  They 
hastened  the  dissolution  of  old  conditions;  they 
undermined  old  standards  by  introducing  new; 
their  very  traditions  facilitated  the  growth  of  that 
[206] 


traditionless  quality  of  the  American  mind  which 
hastened  our  material  transformation. 

How  we  estimate  this  influence  of  the  immi- 
grant depends  upon  our  definition  of  the  term.  In 
a  sense  we  are  all  immigrants,  from  the  straightest 
lineal  descendant  of  Miles  Standish  to  the  burly 
"Hunkie"  unloaded  at  Ellis  Island  this  morning; 
from  the  men  who  came  over  in  the  Mayflower 
to  the  men  who  came  over  in  the  newest  liner. 
We  may,  however,  arbitrarily  define  immigration 
as  beginning  with  1820,  the  first  year  for  which 
we  have  statistics.  Prior  to  that  date  the  trans- 
atlantic movement  was  feeble.  During  the  Colonial 
period  only  a  trickling  stream  flowed  across  the 
ocean.  The  Revolutionary  War  cut  us  off  from 
Europe.  England  was  hostile,  the  rest  of  the 
world  indifferent.  America  was  little  known  and 
not  well-known.  During  the  forty  years  ending 
in  1820,  less  than  a  quarter-million  Europeans 
came  to  America.  At  present  more  immigrants 
land  on  a  single  summer  day  than  arrived  a  cen- 
tury ago  during  a  whole  year. 

The  very  poverty  of  the  European  masses  pre- 
vented their  exodus.  A  ticket  for  the  hold  of  one 
of  the  pitching  little  sailing-vessels  cost  about  ten 
pounds.  But  where  should  a  laborer  in  those  days 
find  ten  pounds?  Men  were  born,  grew  up,  mar- 
ried, begot  children,  and  died  at  a  ripe  old  age 
without  ever  owning  a  pound,  without  ever  touch- 
ing or  seeing  a  five-pound  note.  To  buy  his 
passage  the  emigrant  sold  himself.  He  became 
an  "indentured"  servant  liable  to  a  number  of 
[207] 


years  of  unpaid  labor  in  America.  This  service 
was  neither  brief  nor  easy.  Adults  usually  in- 
dentured themselves  from  three  to  six  years;  chil- 
dren from  ten  to  fifteen,  or  until  they  came  of  age. 
If,  on  the  way  over,  a  man's  parents  died — and 
this  event  was  common  enough — the  orphan 
served  their  time  as  well  as  his  own.  At  Phila- 
delphia, at  Boston,  at  New  York,  dealers  in  "in- 
dentured servants"  boarded  the  boat  to  look  for 
a  "likely  boy"  or  a  not  too  old  housekeeper. 
Parents  sometimes  sold  their  children,  to  remain 
free  themselves.  The  traffic,  though  lucrative  to 
the  ship-owner  and  advantageous  to  the  farmer, 
pressed  hardly  on  the  poor  "indentured  servants," 
often  chained  together  and  peddled  off  in  the 
Colonial  villages. 

It  is  not  strange  that  immigration  increased. 
Gradually  transportation  facilities  improved, 
America  became  better  known,  and  the  European 
population  more  mobile.  Immigrants,  already 
established  in  America,  sent  home  money  to  per- 
mit other  immigrants  to  come.  The  endless  chain 
began  to  revolve.  In  1828  the  number  of  arriving 
immigrants  exceeded  twenty-seven  thousand,  as 
compared  with  less  than  eight  thousand  only  four 
years  earlier.  In  1832  another  powerful  impulse 
carried  the  immigration  to  over  sixty  thousand 
annually.  During  the  next  twelve  years  immigra- 
tion maintained  itself  at  a  fairly  constant  level, 
averaging,  almost  seventy  thousand  a  year.  Then 
in  1845  there  came  to  the  transatlantic  movement 
a  stupendous  and  unprecedented  growth.  Soon 
[208] 


the  two-hundred-thousand  mark  was  reached,  then 
three  hundred  thousand,  and  finally,  in  1854,  no 
less  than  four  hundred  and  twenty-seven  thousand 
immigrants  arrived.  In  proportion  to  our  popula- 
tion, it  was  the  greatest  immigration  this  country 
has  ever  had. 

No  one  who  knew  the  state  of  Europe  need 
have  wondered  at  this  human  flood.  The  feudal 
conditions  in  Germany,  which  had  survived  the 
French  Revolution  and  Napoleon,  were  at  last  dis- 
integrating; industry  was  beginning,  the  power 
loom  was  destroying  the  old  hand-weavers ;  educa- 
tion was  spreading,  and  the  population  was  on  the 
move,  intellectually  and  physically.  To  these  con- 
ditions, making  for  a  freer-footed  peasantry,  a 
special  occurrence  contributed.  The  bitter  winter 
of  1845  destroyed  innumerable  vineyards.  The 
melting  snows  swelled  the  Danube,  the  Elbe,  the 
Main,  the  Moselle,  the  Rhine,  devastating  the 
surrounding  country.  The  potato  'crop,  the  main 
resource  of  the  German  peasant,  failed  utterly, 
and  during  the  winter  of  1846  hosts  of  people 
stolidly  starved.  Those  who  had  the  means  to 
leave  discovered  that  America  was  the  one  way 
out,  and  so  on  the  white  Strasburg  road  long  lines 
of  carts  began  to  make  their  way  from  Bavaria 
and  Wiirtemberg,  from  Baden  and  Hesse-Cassel, 
to  the  nearest  seaport.  "There  they  go  slowly 
along,"  wrote  a  sympathetic  observer,  "their 
miserable  tumbrils  drawn  by  such  starved,  droop- 
ing beasts  that  your  only  wonder  is  how  they  can 
possibly  hope  to  reach  Havre  alive."  The  carts 
[209] 


were  littered  with  the  scanty  property  of  the  emi- 
grants, and  "piled  on  the  top  of  all  are  the  women 
and  children,  the  sick  and  bedridden,  and  all  who 
are  too  exhausted  with  the  journey  to  walk.  One 
might  take  it  for  a  convoy  of  wounded,  the  relics 
of  a  battlefield,  but  for  the  rows  of  little  white 
heads  peeping  from  beneath  the  ragged  hoods." 

If  these  German  emigrants,  these  new  adven- 
turers, were  poor,  what  may  we  say  of  the  Irish, 
who  in  their  fearfully  overcrowded  island  were, 
at  the  best  on  the  verge  of  starvation?  The  hor- 
rible ravages  of  the  potato  famine  of  1846  among 
the  wretched  poor  of  Ireland  need  no  repetition. 
Untold  thousands  died  in  their  huts;  others,  find- 
ing no  relief  in  the  towns  congested  with  starving 
folk,  lay  down  in  the  streets  and  died.  "Along 
the  country  roads,"  writes  Justin  McCarthy,  "one 
met  everywhere  groups  of  gaunt,  dim-eyed 
wretches,  clad  in  miserable  old  sacking  and  wan- 
dering aimlessly  with  some  vague  idea  of  finding 
food." 

This  was  the  impulse,  this  "vague  idea  of  find- 
ing food,"  which  in  the  fifties  brought  millions  of 
West  Europeans  across  the  ocean.  The  voyage 
was  desperate.  The  vessels,  officered  by  ignorant, 
underpaid,  and  often  brutal  captains,  and  crowded 
to  the  gunwale  with  despised  passengers,  carried 
fever  in  their  holds.  The  dead  were  consigned  to 
the  sea,  the  sick  and  stricken  were  put  off  at  New 
York  or  Boston,  to  fill  the  hospitals  and  alms- 
houses.  The  Germans,  some  of  whom  had  means, 
moved  in  a  never-ending  line  to  the  western 
[210] 


frontier.  The  less  mobile  Irish  were  to  a  great 
extent  stranded  in  the  Eastern  cities. 

This  immigration  was  by  no  means  cordially 
welcomed.  From  1835  on,  a  strongly  antagonistic 
attitude  manifested  itself  in  the  "Native-Ameri- 
can" and  "Know-Nothing"  movements,  both  of 
which  were  largely  anti-Catholic  in  animus  and 
political  in  form.  The  Nativists  demanded  a  re- 
striction of  immigration  and  the  appointment  of 
only  native  Americans  to  political  office.  The 
"Know-Nothing"  party,  which  arose  out  of  the 
enormous  immigration  of  the  late  forties,  elected 
a  number  of  Senators  and  Representatives,  but  re- 
mained without  effect  on  national  legislation. 
Immigration  went  on  unimpeded. 

The  conditions,  however,  in  which  the  newly 
arrived  immigrants  found  themselves,  and  the  con- 
ditions which  they  made  for  themselves,  were  by 
no  means  all  that  might  have  been  desired. 
America  did  nothing  to  protect  the  newcomers, 
and  the  first  and  most  lasting  impression  which 
the  alien  received  was  often  the  lodging-house 
shark  or  some  other  of  the  numerous  exploiters 
who  infested  the  landing-place  at  Castle  Garden. 
Nor  did  the  majority  of  immigrants  bring  with 
them  high  standards  of  living.  The  new-comers 
from  southern  and  western  Ireland  had  spent 
their  early  lives  in  the  utmost  squalor,  in  crowded, 
wretched,  ill-lit,  ill-ventilated  hovels,  with  no  floor 
and  no  furniture,  and  no  beds  but  heaps  of  filthy 
straw  or  filthier  rags.  From  miserable  huts  of 
this  sort  these  immigrants  migrated  to  horrible 

[211] 


tenements  in  loathsome  American  alleys.  The 
transition  meant  no  immediate  radical  improve- 
ment in  their  habits. 

As  a  matter  of  history,  most  of  the  conditions 
and  influences  now  ascribed  to  immigration  were 
ascribed  to  it  half  a  century  and  more  ago.  Then, 
as  now,  the  resident  had  a  prejudice  against  the 
new-comer,  because  of  his  lower  standards. 
Though  the  native  refused  to  associate  with  the 
alien,  he  none  the  less  objected  to  the  latter's  isola- 
tion, to  the  clannishness  of  the  Irish  and  to  the 
close  congregation  of  Germans,  who  formed  racial 
clots  in  the  American  vascular  system.  It  was 
complained  that  these  aliens  "have  their  own 
theatres,  recreations,  amusements,  military  and 
national  organizations;  to  a  great  extent  their 
own  schools,  churches,  and  trade-unions;  their  own 
newspapers  and  periodical  literature."  A  quiet 
social  ostracism  prevailed,  emphasized  from  time 
to  time  by  attacks  upon  Catholic  churches  or  Ger- 
man Turner  societies,  by  persecutions  of  foreign- 
born  children  in  the  schools,  and  by  occasional 
vehement  denunciations  from  rostrum  and  pulpit. 

In  the  meanwhile,  however,  the  immigrant 
was  quietly  being  changed  by  America  and  was 
quietly  changing  America.  After  1854  immigra- 
tion fell  off  rapidly,  and  during  the  early  years  of 
the  Civil  War  it  dwindled  to  less  than  a  hundred 
thousand  a  year.  The  country  was  expanding  at 
an  unprecedented  rate.  The  war  absorbed  native 
and  foreign  born,  and  the  growing  West  made  its 
appeal  to  all.  Industry  grew  stupendously,  the 
[212] 


railroads  opened  new  territories,  and  cities  sprang 
up  everywhere.  The  immigrants  were  learning 
American  ways,  were  marrying  American  wives, 
were  begetting  and  rearing  American  children. 
The  son  of  the  German  or  Irish  immigrant  was 
more  American  than  the  Americans. 

What  happened  in  the  forties  and  fifties  has 
been  repeated  again  and  again,  though  in  less 
spectacular  form.  The  source  of  immigration  has 
changed,  but  the  impulse  has  remained  the  same. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  have  come  to  escape  re- 
ligious or  political  persecution,  but  the  movement 
of  the  millions  has  been  an  economic  movement, 
impelled  by  economic  causes  and  subject  to  eco- 
nomic laws.  Immigration  ebbed  and  flowed,  de- 
clining after  panics  and  depressions  in  America, 
and  increasing  to  torrential  floods  with  each 
European  calamity  or  with  each  sudden  improve- 
ment in  American  industry.  Progress,  however, 
was  upward.  Immigrants  were  insulted,  cheated, 
occasionally  murdered,  but  those  who  survived 
and  prospered  wrote  glowing  letters  home,  while 
the  men  who  died  from  tuberculosis  and  dynamite 
explosions  wrote  no  letters.  Year  by  year  the  in- 
flow increased.  The  average  gross  immigration 
during  the  years  1905-1912  was  only  a  little  under 
a  million  a  year. 

A  change,  however,  has  come  over  this  move- 
ment. Of  the  total  immigration  from  1820  to 
1860,  over  one-half  was  British  and  Irish,  and 
over  one-fourth  German.  Since  1881,  our  immi- 
grants have  come  chiefly  from  southern  and  east- 


ern  Europe.  To-day  there  climb  out  of  the  ship's 
steerage  Italians,  Greeks,  Bohemians,  Lithu- 
anians, Poles,  Magyars,  Russians,  Hebrews, 
Syrians,  Armenians,  Turks,  Croatians,  Slovenians, 
Slovaks,  Servians,  Rumanians,  Bulgarians,  Mon- 
tenegrins, Dalmatians,  Bosnians,  and  Herzegovi- 
nians.  Improved  transportation  and  improved 
conditions  in  Europe  have  contributed  to  this  de- 
velopment. We  could  not  have  expected  many 
more  immigrants  from  Ireland.  That  country's 
population  is  less  than  five  years  of  our  total  in- 
flow; if  all  our  immigrants  were  to  come  from 
Ireland,  not  a  soul  would  be  left  by  the  year  1918. 
Sweden's  population  is  that  of  New  York  City; 
Norway's  that  of  Chicago.  We  could  empty  both 
countries  in  a  decade.  Germany's  large  popula- 
tion grows,  but  conditions  there  are  improving  so 
rapidly  that  the  Empire  now  attracts  immigrants. 
Eastern  and  southern  Europe,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  awakening.  The  railroad,  trolley,  newspaper, 
telegraph,  telephone,  invade  the  interior.  Men 
begin  to  move.  The  attraction  of  America  reaches 
ever  farther.  To-day  the  peasant  in  Dalmatia, 
Syria,  Basilicata,  is  nearer  America,  knows  more 
about  us,  than  did  the  man  from  Galway,  or 
Bavaria  half  a  century  ago.  The  Italian  in  New 
York  City  goes  to  a  moving-picture  theatre  on 
Elizabeth  Street  and  sees  on  the  screen  the  faces 
of  friends  who,  a  few  months  before,  embarked 
from  Naples  for  the  Tripolitan  war.  For  a  few 
soldi  an  urchin  of  Palermo  actually  sees  "Little 
Italy." 

[214] 


That  is  the  history  of  our  immigration,  a  com- 
ing together  of  the  New  and  the  Old  World.  The 
attraction  of  America  penetrates  ever  deeper  into 
Europe,  from  the  maritime  peoples  living  on  the 
fringe  of  the  ocean,  to  the  inland  plains,  and  then 
into  somnolent,  winter-locked  mountain  villages. 
Simultaneously  Europe  changes  America.  You 
can  alter  any  country  if  you  pour  in  enough  mil- 
lions. These  immigrants,  moreover,  are  of  a 
character  to  effect  changes.  America's  attraction 
is  not  to  the  good  or  to  the  bad,  to  the  saint  or 
to  the  sinner,  but  to  the  young,  the  aggresive,  the 
restless,  the  ambitious.  The  Europeans  in 
America  are  chosen  men,  for  there  is  a  rigorous 
selection  at  home  and  a  rigorous  selection  here, 
the  discouraged  and  defeated  returning  by  the 
shipload.  These  immigrating  races  are  virile, 
tenacious,  prolific.  Each  shipload  of  new-comers 
carries  to  American  life  an  impulse  like  the  rapidly 
succeeding  explosions  of  a  gasolene-engine. 

Moreover,  these  immigrants,  peasants  at  home, 
become  city-dwellers  here.  The  city  is  the  heart 
of  our  body  social.  It  is  the  home  of  education, 
amusement,  culture,  crime,  discontent,  social  con- 
tacts— and  power.  The  immigrant,  even  in  the 
gutter  of  the  city,  is  often  nearer  to  the  main  cur- 
rents of  our  national  life  than  is  the  average  resi- 
dent of  the  country.  His  children  are  more 
literate,  more  restless,  more  wide-awake. 

With  such  numbers,  such  qualities,  and  such  a 
position  within  the  social  network,  one  might 
imagine  that  the  immigrant  would  gradually  trans- 


form  us  in  his  own  likeness.  But  no  such  direct 
influence  is  visible.  As  a  nation  we  have  not 
learned  politeness,  although  we  have  drawn  mil- 
lions of  immigrants  from  the  politest  peoples  in 
the  world.  Our  national  irreverence  is  not  de- 
creased, but,  on  the  contrary,  is  actually  increased, 
by  the  mass  of  idols,  of  good  old  customs,  memo- 
ries, religions,  which  come  to  us  in  the  steerage. 
Nor  is  the  immigrant's  influence  in  any  way  inten- 
tional. Though  he  hopes  that  America  will  make 
him,  the  immigrant  has  no  presumptuous  thought 
of  making  America.  To  him,  America  is  a  fixed, 
unchanging  environmental  thing,  a  land  to  browse 
on. 

This  very  passivity  of  the  newly  arrived  immi- 
grant is  the  most  tremendous  of  influences.  The 
workman  who  does  not  join  a  union,  the  citizen 
who  sends  his  immature  children  to  the  factory, 
the  man  who  does  not  become  naturalized,  or 
who  maintains  a  standard  of  living  below  an  in- 
adequate wage,  such  a  one  by  contagion  and 
pressure  changes  conditions  and  lowers  standards 
all  about  him,  undermining  to  the  extent  of  his 
lethargy  our  entire  social  edifice.  The  aim  of 
Americanization  is  to  combat  this  passive  in- 
fluence. Two  forces,  like  good  and  evil,  are  op- 
posed on  that  long  frontier  line  where  the  immi- 
grant comes  into  contact  with  the  older  resident. 
The  American,  through  self-protection,  not  love, 
seeks  to  raise  the  immigrant  to  his  economic 
level,  the  immigrant,  through  self-protection,  not 
through  knowledge,  involuntarily  accepts  condi- 
[216] 


tions  which  tend  to  drag  the  American  down  to 
his.  In  this  contest  much  that  we  ordinarily  ac- 
count virtue  is  evil ;  much  that  is  ugly  is  good.  The 
immigrant  girl  puts  on  a  corset,  exchanges  her 
picturesque  headdress  for  a  flowering  monstrosity 
of  an  American  hat,  squeezes  her  honest  peasant's 
foot  into  a  narrow,  thin-soled  American  shoe — 
and  behold,  it  is  good.  It  is  a  step  toward  assimi- 
lation, toward  a  more  expensive  if  not  a  more 
lovely  standard  of  living.  It  gives  hostages  to 
America.  It  makes  the  frenzied  saving  of  the 
early  days  impossible.  Docility,  abnegation,  and 
pecuniary  abasement  are  not  economic  virtues, 
however  highly  they  may  be  rated  in  another 
category. 

In  still  other  ways  this  assimilation  alters  and 
limits  the  alien's  influence.  Much  is  lost  in  the 
process.  The  immigrant  comes  to  us  laden  with 
gifts,  but  we  have  not  the  leisure  to  take  nor  he 
the  opportunity  to  tender.  The  brilliant  native 
costumes,  the  strange,  vibrant  dialects,  the  curious 
mental  molds  are  soon  faded  or  gone.  The  old 
religions,  the  old  customs,  the  traditional  man- 
ners, the  ancient  lace  do  not  survive  the  melting- 
pot.  Assimilation,  however  necessary,  ends  the 
charm  and  rareness  of  our  quaint  human  importa- 
tions. 

For  this  esthetic  degeneration  the  immigrant 
must  not  be  blamed.  To  gain  himself  he  must 
lose  himself.  He  must  adopt  "our  ways."  The 
Italian  day  laborer  finds  that  macaroni  and  lettuce 
are  not  a  suitable  diet  for  ten  hours'  work  on  the 


subway  or  the  Catskill  dam.  The  politeness  of 
sunny  southern  Europe  is  at  a  discount  in  our 
skurrying,  elbowing  crowds.  The  docility  of  the 
peasant  damns  a  man  irretrievably  in  the  struggle 
to  rise,  and  conservatism  in  gentle,  outlandish 
manners  is  impossible  in  kaleidoscopic  America. 
The  immigrant,  therefore,  accepts  our  standards 
wholesale  and  indiscriminately.  He  "goes  the 
limit"  of  assimilation — slang,  clothes,  and  chew- 
ing-gum. He  accommodates  himself  quickly  to 
that  narrow  fringe  of  America  which  affects  him 
most  immediately.  The  Talmudist  in  Russia  is, 
for  better  or  worse,  no  Talmudist  here :  he  is  a 
cloak-presser  or  a  real-estate  broker.  The  Greek 
shepherd  becomes  an  elevator-boy  or  a  hazardous 
speculator  in  resuscitated  violets.  The  Sicilian 
bootblack  learns  to  charge  ten  cents  for  a  five-cent 
shine;  the  candy-vender  from  Macedonia  haggles 
long  before  he  knows  a  hundred  English  words; 
the  Pole  who  never  has  seen  a  coal-mine  becomes 
adept  at  the  use  of  the  steam-shovel. 

Another  limit  to  the  immigrant's  influence  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  America  to  which  he 
adapts  himself  is  the  America  that  he  first  meets, 
the  America  at  the  bottom.  That  bottom  changes 
as  America  changes  from  an  agricultural  to  an 
industrial  nation.  For  the  average  immigrant 
there  is  no  longer  a  free  farm  on  a  Western 
frontier:  there  is  only  a  job  as  an  unskilled  or 
semi-skilled  workman.  For  that  job  a  knowledge 
of  his  letters  is  not  absolutely  necessary.  Nor  is 
a  knowledge  of  English.  There  are  in  America 
[218] 


to-day  a  few  millions  of  aliens  who  cannot  speak 
English  or  read  or  write  their  native  tongue,  and 
who,  from  an  industrial  point  of  view,  are  almost 
mere  muscle.  The  road  from  bottom  to  top  be- 
comes steeper  and  more  inaccessible.  Stratification 
begins. 

Because  of  his  position  at  the  bottom  of  a  strati- 
fied society,  the  immigrant — especially  the  recent 
immigrant — does  not  exert  any  large  direct  in- 
fluence. Taken  in  the  mass,  he  does  not  run  our 
businesses,  make  our  laws,  write  our  books,  paint 
our  pictures,  preach  to  us,  teach  us  or  prescribe 
for  us.  His  indirect  influence,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  increased  rather  than  diminished  by  his  position 
at  the  bottom  of  the  structure.  When  he  moves, 
all  superincumbent  groups  must  of  necessary  shift 
their  positions.  This  indirect  influence  is  mani- 
fold. The  immigration  of  enormous  numbers  of 
unskilled  "interchangeable"  laborers,  who  can  be 
moved  about  like  pawns,  standardizes  our  in- 
dustries, facilitates  the  growth  of  stupendous  busi- 
ness units,  and  generally  promotes  plasticity.  The 
immigrant,  by  his  mere  presence,  by  his  mere 
readiness  to  be  used,  speeds  us  up;  he  accelerates 
the  whole  tempo  of  our  industrial  life.  He 
changes  completely  "the  balance  of  power"  in  in- 
dustry, politics,  and  social  life  generally.  The 
feverish  speed  of  our  labor,  which  is  so  largely 
pathological,  is  an  index  of  this.  The  arrival  of 
ever  fresh  multitudes  adds  to  the  difficulties  of 
securing  a  democratic  control  of  either  industry  or 
politics.  The  presence  of  the  unskilled,  unlettered 
[219] 


immigrant  excites  the  cupidity  of  men  who  wish 
to  make  money  quickly  and  do  not  care  how.  It 
makes  an  essentially  kind-hearted  people  callous. 
Why  save  the  lives  of  uwops"?  What  does  it 
matter  if  our  industry  kills  a  few  thousand  more 
or  less,  when,  if  we  wish,  we  can  get  millions  a 
year  from  inexhaustible  Europe?  Immigration 
acts  to  destroy  our  brakes.  It  keeps  us,  as  a 
nation,  transitional. 

Of  course  this  transitional  quality  of  America 
was  due  partly  to  our  virgin  continent.  There 
was  always  room  in  the  West;  a  man  did  not 
settle,  but  merely  lighted  on  a  spot,  like  a  migra- 
tory bird  on  its  southern  journey.  Immigration, 
however,  intensified  and  protracted  this  develop- 
ment. Each  race  had  to  fight  for  its  place. 
Natives  were  displaced  by  Irish,  who  were  dis- 
placed in  turn  by  Germans,  Russians,  Italians, 
Portuguese,  Greeks,  Syrians.  Whole  trades  were 
deserted  by  one  nation  and  conquered  by  another. 
The  peoples  of  eastern  Europe  inundated  the 
Pennsylvania  mining  districts,  displacing  Irish, 
English,  and  Welsh  miners.  The  Irish  street 
laborer  disappeared;  the  Italian  quietly  took  his 
shovel.  Russian  Jews  revolutionized  the  clothing 
trade,  driving  out  Germans  as  these  had  driven 
out  native  Americans.  The  old  homes  of  dis- 
placed nations  were  inhabited  by  new  peoples ;  the 
old  peoples  were  shoved  up  or  down,  but,  in  any 
case,  out.  Cities,  factories,  neighborhoods  changed 
with  startling  rapidity.  Connecticut  schools,  once 
attended  by  descendants  of  the  Pilgrims,  became 
[  220  ] 


overfilled  with  dark-eyed  Italian  lads  and  tow- 
headed  Slavs.  Protestant  churches  were  stranded 
in  Catholic  or  Jewish  neighborhoods.  America 
changed  rapidly,  feverishly.  That  peculiar  quiet 
restlessness  of  America,  the  calm  fear  with  which 
we  search  with  the  tail  of  our  eye  to  avoid  swirl- 
ing automobiles,  the  rush  and  recklessness  of  our 
life,  were  increased  by  the  mild,  law-abiding 
people  who  came  to  us  from  abroad. 

There  was  a  time  when  all  these  qualities  were 
good,  or  at  least  had  their  good  features.  So  long 
as  we  had  elbow-room  in  the  West,  so  long  as  we 
were  young  and  growing,  with  a  big  continent  to 
make  our  mistakes  in,  even  recklessness  was  a 
virtue.  But  to-day  America  is  no  longer  elastic, 
the  road  from  bottom  to  top  is  not  so  short  and 
not  so  unimpeded  as  it  once  was.  We  cannot  any 
longer  be  sure  that  the  immigrant  will  find  his 
proper  place  in  our  Eastern  mills  or  on  our  West- 
ern farms  without  injury  to  others — or  to  him- 
self. 

The  time  has  passed  when  we  exulted  in  the 
number  of  grown-up  men,  bred  at  another  coun- 
try's expense,  who  came  to  work  for  us  and  fer- 
tilize our  soils  with  their  dead  bones.  The  time 
has  passed  when  we  believed  that  mere  numbers 
were  all.  To-day,  despite  night  schools,  settle- 
ments, and  a  whole  network  of  Americanizing 
agencies,  we  have  teeming,  polyglot  slums  and  the 
clash  of  race  with  race  in  sweatshop  and  factory, 
mine  and  lumber-camp.  We  have  a  mixture  of 
ideals,  a  confusion  of  standards,  a  conglomeration 
[22l] 


000  979  802  7 


